Your well-regulated militia will not kick anybody’s ass

I am the father of two children. I picked them both up at daycare after work this evening.

Tonight, there are fathers in Connecticut who could not pick up their children because they were dead. This is because there was yet one more massacre by another lunatic without a prefrontal cortex who decided to get out his angst toward society by availing himself of our copiously available assault weapons.

I am from Vermont, a state that is armed to the teeth. We have the lowest crime in America. I grew up around weapons. My family has guns. I am a crack shot. I do not demonize weaponry. Also, I have no use for firearms in my day-to-day adult life.

As of today, witnessing two mass murders this week, I have had it with people suggesting that allowing the completely unfettered availability of small arms is essential to the operation of a modern democracy. You are not going to preserve democracy through the availability of your deadly-yet-inconsequential assault weaponry. You are only increasing the likelihood of miscreants murdering our children or random people at malls.

I know you don’t like this. I don’t care anymore.

The roots of your fantasy

I am a fully traditional American, and I understand the myth of the American revolution. Yes, an armed population took on the largest imperial force in the world back in the late 18th century. (We only won because of the French wanting to screw with their main global rivals, but it still counts.) And let’s examine, just briefly, the armaments that went into that victory:

English assets

Guys with muskets

Guys with cannons

Guys with frigates

American assets

Guys with muskets

Home field advantage

Whisky

Squirrel meat

Pretty even match up, wouldn’t you say? Our infantry was roughly equivalent, though the British regulars were (as opposed to American myth) way, way better trained. The Limeys had more money, less knowledge of the terrain, and, only at the end, the French Empire funding their opponents, so they walked away in favor of India, South Africa, and other, more profitable adventures. The Colonists should have lost, but fate intervened.

As a result, Americans maintain the belief that they will still be able to reform and/or defeat government on its soil using “The Second Amendment.” This clause of the Bill of Rights makes way for Americans to maintain armaments much in the same spirit of 1775, such that its citizens might once again rise up with muskets whenever necessary to Defeat Tyranny on Their Soil.

There is one major problem with this dangerously outdated assumption: the chasm between government weaponry and civilian weaponry is comically large. Like, from here to Venus large. So large that your defense of arming every schizophrenic and bipolar douchebag with AR-15s because you want to “prevent tyranny from taking root” is absurdly, ridiculously stupid.

Oh, you think you have a shot at overthrowing The Current American Government? Really? Well let’s backtrack.

Your odds of taking back America with an over-under shotgun

Before I get to the weapons comparison, let’s just get on the same page about something. If you’re a libertarian conservative type and you enjoy the idea of overthrowing tyranny with your hunting rifles, the last decade has been something of a clusterfuck. If your dream of dreams is personally overthrowing a misguided totalitarian militarist regime, well, you’ve been headed in the wrong goddamn direction.

Since those nineteen barbarian asswipes from the Middle East used our own technology to murder 3000 of our citizens, the American Military Industrial Complex has been on a bit of a rampage. The Patriot Act. The Department of Homeland Security. Total Information Awareness. Iraq. Afghanistan. Baghram. Guantanamo. Enhanced Interrogation. Satellites, reading your email, backscatter scans at the airport, dickheads feeling in your wife’s underwear band. Yeah, there sure are a lot of unchecked federal government security operations these days because a few Arabs snuck one by the goalie.

Problem is, there were a whole lot of people in America who cheered for this crap, and tragically, they are the same people who claim they want freedom from the Gubmint. It’s pretty hard to argue for a weak government at home when you want it strong enough to invade Mesapotamia. Either way – we have funded and cheerled a very, very strong federal military apparatus with the power to project its volition all over the globe.

OK, let us take a step back and assume that you, on the Thursday of your choosing, decide that you would like to break the bonds between your holy territory in Dogballs, Arkansas, and the Federal Gubmint in Washington DC. And you are planning on using, in the words of our great stateswoman, Sarah Palin, “Second Amendment solutions.”

AWESOME! LET’S GET IT ON!!! And let’s do a quick comparison between what you, the aging suburbanite have, versus the current American Armed Forces, battled hardened in Mazar-e-Sharif and Fallujah after 50 years of major R&D.

Weaponry available to the American citizenry

What kinds of nasty toys will you bring to bear against the Military-Industry Complex when you’ve had enough and decide to get filled up with bourbon and gumption?

Bushmaster M4 Patrolman

Caliber:

5.56mm or .223 Rem.

Magazine Capacity:

30 Rounds (accepts all M16 type)

Overall Length:

34.75” [88.27 cm]

Length – Stock Retracted:

32.5″ [82.55 cm]

Ruger SR22 Pistol

Slide Material:

Aluminum

Slide Finish:

Black Anodize

Grip Frame:

Black Polymer

Sights:

Adjustable 3-Dot

Barrel Length:

3.50″

Overall Length:

6.40″

Height:

4.90″

Width:

1.29″

ZASTAVA PAP AK-47 COPY

Features:

7.62x39mm caliber

stamped receiver

hinged top cover

weighs 5.69 lbs.

comes with two hi-cap magazines

Maximum range – > 500 yards; effective range- < 300 yards

OK, all set with what The American People will be playing with? Let’s move onto the more interesting set, the toys of the Rogue State that we are supposed to oppose with our Second Amendment Solution!

Active protection system

In addition to the armor, some Abrams are equipped with a Softkill Active protection system, the AN/VLQ-6 Missile Countermeasure Device (MCD) that can impede the function of guidance systems of some semi-active control line-of-sight (SACLOS) wire and radio guided anti-tank missiles (such as the Russian AT-3, AT-4, AT-5, AT-6 and the like) and thermally andinfrared guided missiles.[42] The MCD works by emitting a massive, condensed infrared signal to confuse the seeker of an anti-tank guided missile (ATGM). However, the drawback to the system is that the ATGM is not destroyed, it is merely directed away from its intended target, leaving the missile to detonate elsewhere. This device is mounted on the turret roof in front of the loader’s hatch, and can lead some people to mistake Abrams fitted with these devices for the M1A2 version, since the Commander’s Independent Thermal Viewer on the latter is mounted in the same place, though the MCD is box-shaped and fixed in place as opposed to cylindrical and rotating like the CITV.

Armor

The Abrams is protected by armor based on the British-designed Chobham armor, a further development of the British ‘Burlington’ armor. Chobham is a composite armor formed by spacing multiple layers of various alloys of steel, ceramics, plastic composites, and kevlar, giving an estimated maximum (frontal turret) 1,320–1,620 millimetres (52–64 in) of RHAe versus HEAT (and other chemical energy rounds) and 940–960 mm (37–38 in) versus kinetic energy penetrators. It may also be fitted with reactive armor over the track skirts if needed (as in the Urban Survival Kit) and slat armor over the rear of the tank and rear fuel cells to protect against ATGMs. Protection against spalling is provided by a Kevlar liner. Beginning in 1987, M1A1 tanks received improved armor packages that incorporated depleted uranium (DU) mesh in their armor at the front of the turret and the front of the hull. Armor reinforced in this manner offers significantly increased resistance towards all types of anti-tank weaponry, but at the expense of adding considerable weight to the tank, as depleted uranium is 1.7 times more dense than lead.

Boeing AH-64 Apache

The Boeing AH-64 Apache is a four-blade, twin-engine attack helicopter with a tailwheel-type landing gear arrangement, and a tandem cockpit for a two-man crew.

The AH-64 Apache features a nose-mounted sensor suite for target acquisition and night vision systems. It is armed with a30-millimeter (1.2 in)M230 Chain Gun carried between the main landing gear, under the aircraft’s forward fuselage. It has four hardpoints mounted on stub-wing pylons, typically carrying a mixture of AGM-114 Hellfire missiles and Hydra 70 rocket pods. The AH-64 has a large amount of systems redundancy to improve combat survivability.

One of the revolutionary features at the introduction of the Apache was its helmet mounted display, the Integrated Helmet and Display Sighting System (IHADSS); among other abilities the pilot or gunner can slave the helicopter’s 30 mm automatic M230 Chain Gun to his helmet, making the gun track head movements to point at where he looks. The M230E1 can be alternatively fixed to a locked forward firing position, or controlled via the Target Acquisition and Designation System (TADS). The AH-64’s standard of performance for aerial gunnery is to achieve at least one hit out of 30 shots fired at a wheeled vehicle 800–1200 m away

BONUS: Here’s the Apache in action against Taliban insurgents on their home territory.

Tactical nuclear weapons

Okay, enough said.

You are better off writing blog posts

Can we get real here? You are not going to defeat the United States Military. At all.

Are you thinking that if the system of governance in the United States doesn’t suit you, it is always a possibility to use your stockpiled AK-47 ripoffs to force a new rule of law at the point of a gun after a few years, just like back in 1776?

No fucking way.

How are you going to organize? Government agents can monitor your email, search engine requests, Facebook communications, and phone calls if they have any reason to worry about you.

Are you going to attack military facilities? Really?

Are you going to hide in the hills? In the cities? Are you going to face down Seal Team Six, which dealt with Osama bin Laden deep inside of Pakistan? With a few bottle rockets? Honestly?

If you want change, you are better off writing poems. The notion of taking on a military that is unchallenged in the world is utterly absurd.

Write about justice. Think about peace. Argue for economic opportunity. All good things.

Fight for smaller government. Start all the libertarian blogs you want.

But cut it out with the nonsense that making assault weapons available to all of North America does something other than provide schizophrenics with props for their murder fantasies. Because you aren’t George Washington, or Nathaniel Green, or Patrick Henry. You are somebody wondering when the next mass murderer is going to invade a daycare.

There is one major flaw in your argument about taking on an oppressive government that is armed to the hilt. You change the targets, you aim for the soft targets and take out the politicians not the soldiers.

Alexander Ryan

And then the military sets up at the soft targets.

http://www.facebook.com/seth.cole.90 Seth Cole

Then you have a junta being set up with leadership that isn’t politicians and aren’t interested in your vote.

steve

@bob – are you out of your mind? Do you really expect that they will let you do that and then go hide out in the hills? You may be able to take out a few low-level politicians before they get you. Even if you got organized in larger groups before carrying out the killings, you’d be so dead in the water once they got the sniff of your little group and its agenda.

alanpUK

While the arguement is good , it is currently being tested in Afghanistan and prior to that in Iraq and if my observations are correct the “terrorists” seem to have made the US military’s life one filled with consequences such as getting killed, not being able to go out alone , etc. A better arguement would be that it would be impossible to round up the , what is it now, 300 million guns? Additionally many US servicemen are pro gun and as such would have to be removed from service. I wouldnt want these people as my enemy.

http://www.facebook.com/seth.cole.90 Seth Cole

We can’t forget that the US, and no modern military for that matter, has initiated total war policy since WW2. We all know the history and the consequences when governments ceased distinguishing between military and civilian targets and didn’t hold back. Entire cities wiped off the map, an entire continent left in ruin and others suffering vast destruction. That was with primitive technology by today’s standards. These days if the goal is simply to destroy opposition without regard for civilian casualties or infrastructure, the military doesn’t even need to send in troops. They can destroy targets from the other side of the country.

innomen

Firstly he starts off with an obvious emotional ploy anecdote, clearly designed to ward off any counter. So I’m not even going to bother, if he doesn’t want a real hearing he won’t get one.

Someone has been watching too much TV.

The statements made however radically misunderstand both the nature of American warfare and the kind of war the 2nd amendment anticipates in a modern context.

A war of the military vs its citizenry would not be the same class of conflict as a war against foreign powers. Most simply because that citizenry provides the material support that military needs to run.

Beans, bullets, and bandages. Who do you think supplies those for our military?

It would instantly be a guerrilla war also and half of them may well switch sides, many waiting to do so at critical moments. Leading to a simultaneous civil war.

Basically, defeating the US military for the US citizens would be an inside job and we could simply outlast them.

A general strike is implied in such a scenario and given the amount of funding, which translates obviously to the amount of domestic labor the American military relies on, that alone would be devastating.

Make no mistake the 2nd is doing its job.

I’ll be generous and say every last person in uniform is unified, that’s 2,927,754 military personnel.

And that’s completely ignoring what we make and hold for government use, and what’s sitting on pawn shop and gun shop shelves all over the country. Every walmart in the south is an armory.

Population: 311,591,917 (2011) United States Census Bureau

That’s 280,432,725 people with a gun each vs 2,927,754.

That’s just about 99 to 1.

Frankly, we could take them even it they fuel air bombed the major cities, in advance. And they know it.

http://www.facebook.com/Enniskillen Jeffrey Lee Virgin

Of course your assumption is that those 99 are as traitorous as you. If you don’t respect your government, there are flights leaving every few minutes, get on one.

innomen

My assessment of a strategic hypothetical doesn’t have an ounce of bearing on my political disposition, which if you’d explore my work, you’d know abhors violence.

My assumption is that those 99 would fight for their lives or the lives of their families, assuming they wouldn’t fight for principal or their community.

http://www.facebook.com/Enniskillen Jeffrey Lee Virgin

Actually your “assumption” is that your own government would ever turn on it’s people. A silly paranoid assumption at that.

innomen

What country do you live in? Because in mine we have swat team raids on the wrong houses, protesters get pepper sprayed while sitting peacefully, we torture whistle blowers, we execute American citizens without even criminal charges being filed, we have laws making it perfectly legal to imprison them at will for life without charge, we let elections be bought and sold like so much stock, we appoint corporate raiders to federal advisory positions, we let the FDA leadership own stock in the companies they are expected to regulate, we let corporations literally patent our genes, we give them the same rights as people but hold them to no meaningful criminal accountability, we let half of congress be millionaires, we let the top 1% take 93% of all fiscal growth, we start illegal wars and then use the gargantuan debt they create as an excuse to destroy caring for the sick and the old, and on and on…

In this context it could be argued they have already turned on us.

MomsHugs

All good points, innomen, with which I agree & raise some from my own personal experiences. Yet I still do not wish for anarchy to become the new norm.

innomen

You seem to imply the only choices are between living under a criminal empire and living under a dictatorial one. There are other options.

The biggest flaw in the gun control logic pantheon is that making guns illegal will make them go away.

Like the ammo law crowd subset. “Make bullets 10,000$” etc. What everyone seems to forget is that guns aren’t remotely high tech. All banning them would do is start a new gun war, like the drug war. Drugs in a sense are FAR more complex then guns. And worlds more complex than explosives.

The ancient chinese made gunpowder out of camp fires and urine basically.

Which do you think is easier, making ammo, or making meth? I assure you its the former. And yet we still make meth even though the product kills you and the process can literally melt your face. Why? Because prohibition has created a black market with profit margins that are beyond imagination. And meth isn’t even expressly designed to kill.

So your solution is to make a new funding stream for criminals? Create a new black market for basement made guns and ammo?

The level of totalitarian control required to strip America of guns doesn’t exist. Even North Korea doesn’t have that level of control over its population. Thus any gun control amount to changing the demographic of gun owners from law abiding citizens to criminals be they government employed or not.

When tragedies occur and emotions run high people demand action but in reality if the solution were as simple as banning the guns it would have worked somewhere else. (As for example drug decriminalization has worked in other nations.) (For a counter example look at swiss gun laws and gun numbers and compared their violence stats.) The problem isn’t guns. Sadly its a culmination of many problems which makes easy quick emotionally satisfying solutions all the more illusory.

Nations of similar cultural and demographic character have tried radical gun control efforts and the results have always been atrocious. (Most recently, Australia.)

Also you must consider that even if the gun control policy you want would work, that’s not the policy you’ll get. What you’ll get is a compromised version, which may well be worse than nothing.

Do you know how much money the United States makes selling arms including small arms to other nations?

I’m sorry to stamp on your illusion but gun control is not a viable solution for a whole host of reasons, and there is a reason we only ever talk about it after a tragedy. That’s because when we all calm down enough to closely examine the real problems, all that fire gets aimed in the right directions. (Health care, education funding, income inequality, labor relations, and all the other stressers that lead to the manufacture of homicidal lunatics in the first place, etc)

Once the screaming irrational blood rage caused by watching our children die subsides, we’ll begin to hopefully explore the real problem and enact some real solutions. But a gun ban isn’t a real solution by any objective rational criteria.

To say it would do more harm than good is a staggering understatement.

Rappin’ Joey C

And civilians owning automatic weapons has done what to curb this corruption?

Justin Dallas

The problem with your assumption is that you feel that the military is going to be one side and 100% of the populace will be on the other. That’s simply not going to happen. Seeing as how these are all conservative fantasies, and the election went the other way, I don’t see the entire nation going against the government and military for a right wing cause.

innomen

That’s actually part of my point. The original hypothetical is wildly unrealistic to begin with. I’m simply saying that if you run with that absurd premise, the outcome still isn’t what is being suggested.

Jon Hendry

“The American civilian populace is armed to the tune of 9 out of 10.”

No, there’s ten million nutjobs with dozens of guns.

MomsHugs

Eric ~ Thanks so much for writing the most common sense ‘take’ on the gun myths. You are SO right!

Having said that, would you be so kind to back a call to action – letter-writing campaign to amend the Second Amendment & give a voice for a “100 Million Mom March” on March 1st?

Strictly grassroots – no organization or money involved – only a few stamps & everyone pay their own expenses to march to state capitals, gun manufacturers, NRA-HQ, Congress, the White House & to occupy the National Park.

It is time for such a ‘call to action’ by mothers, grandmothers, sisters & daughters – but backed by fathers, grandfathers, brothers & sons that choose to support the mothers.

Time for a “100 Million Moms March” to ban citizens from owning assault weapons & amend the Second Amendment as follows:

Proposed Amendment XXVII: “A well-regulated society being necessary to the security of the citizens of a free nation, the right to keep and bear arms under Amendment II shall be amended to make such rights to modern assault weaponry inherent only in the purposeful use by law enforcement for the safety of citizens and by a regulated military for the defense of the nation.”

Like birds & butterflies – put it out there & let it fly!!

ConcernedCitizen

Tell your story to the North Vietnamese villagers who literally decimated your modern warfare argument with sticks and stones. Tell it to the Afghans who have been getting world support for whatever opponent they have been fighting for several decades. Tell it to the “dissidents” in Libya and Egypt. You write your poems and keep refilling your blog. I have a better chance with my AK47 than you have with your BIC pen or Apple IPad.

Given the right motivation and the right amount of will and support, there is no tyranny that cannot be overcome. It has been proven throughout history time and time again.

MomsHugs

Dear ConcernedCitizen ~ Do you really, honestly believe our law enforcement & military is a tyranny??? As a mother & grandmother, I prefer any assault weaponry – small arms or otherwise – be in their hands, not my neighbors or whoever is sitting at the next table in a restaurant or the library.

ConcernedCitizen

Dear Mom: Good for you. You can elect to be a victim of any tyranny – great or small – if you choose to. You seem to prefer the only weapons be in the hands of those who would turn them against you?

I think that in history, every civilization has reached the point that we are at. We are a polarized nation being driven further apart every day. I happen to have a home and a family to protect and I intend to exercise my right to do so.

MomsHugs

Dear Concerned: You really have twisted things in your mind. I don’t wish to be anyone’s victim nor do I want my family to be victims of anyone – especially you. Neither do I see law enforcement & military as perfect – far from it. However, they have a professional job to do & our social contract with each other has given them legal authorization to do that job. Whereas you can protect yourself & family while sitting within your home, you are not legally authorized to pull a gun out of your pants & use it anywhere else – even if you have a permit to carry it concealed. Furthermore, we are not as polarized around this issue as you may surmise listening to your own echoes on talk shows. However, I sincerely doubt your mind is open to listening to other people’s concerns as citizens.

beltrams

You ought to go talk to some people overseas, innocent victims, women and children, and see if you still think our government is so “professional” with weapons, as you put it or people of color back here, victims of police brutality, horrible police gun downs, and whatnot.

http://www.facebook.com/debra.a.ball Debra Ann Ball

wow, you are really going off track on the main points of the debate here. This debate is about whether the private ownership of assault weapons should be permitted. If you hate our government so much you had better start to become politically active and change things. But I certainly wouldn’t want to see an assault weapon in your hands. Yikes.

beltrams

Are you kidding me? Our government has been maintaining kill lists of people overseas and executing them with robotic aircraft among many, many, other means. It’s been detaining people without charges for years, spying on anybody and everybody, and completely owned by the major corporations. Yes, so far they’ve been targeting mainly people overseas, but what makes you so sure that they won’t turn on the domestic population when it suits them? Just look at this laundry list of what the current president has done, and know well that Bush did this kind of thing as well: http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2012/12/20121210113135945243.html#.UMqCHw4s5Rc.facebook

MomsHugs

No kidding from this old gal! This is a very serious matter for me & I dare say, everyone posting here. I am no spring chicken & have been through years when it seemed our nation was going to come apart at the seams… violently!

I was a young mother living in an area where rioting over civil rights took place & watched some of it from my window while shielding the violence from my children the same age as these 20 little first graders. My children – in kindergarten & first grade – were traumatized by aggressive children at school who acted out the violence they had around them. Whites moved out of the area in droves. So, yes, I am quite familiar with violence perpetrated on our own non-white citizens.

I was not only a mother of young children, but a student at a major university when guns were turned on Kent State students protesting U.S. waging its own war in Vietnam’s civil war. The students had NO GUNS with which to fight back, but they had courage & bravery to stand up & be heard… day after day after day, verbally & in writing… to bring our involvement to an end.

Which brings me to Eric Garland’s point. . . the pen has been known to be mightier than the sword. . . as well as other non-violent means of throwing off the yoke of tyranny that has been far more effective & longer lasting than violence. Read up on Mohandas Ghandhi!

http://profiles.google.com/mellon Edward Lemon

Vietnam was 40 years ago, and the military has been licking their wounds and waiting for a do-over ever since. In Vietnam we did not have remote-piloted kill drones. We had to destroy villages the old-fashioned way. No, if you decide to take up armed resistance against the government, what you will experience will be more like what the Branch Davidians experienced than it will be like what the North Vietnamese experienced.

As for the Afghans and their successes, the Afghan people are living in a war zone, in a war between two opposing armies: ours and the Taliban’s. They are not on the side of the Taliban, and they are not on the side of the U.S. They just want the killing to stop. They just want to go back to living their lives.

If you were to become involved in an armed conflict against the U.S. government, you might well take up the role of the Taliban. If you did, you might well survive, through your brutality to your neighbors, your use of them as defensive shields, and so on. But I don’t want you to do that. I don’t want to be your shield. I am not interested in dying in your war.

And realistically, you aren’t either. You aren’t going to be the Taliban. You’re going to be the human shield that the local Taliban uses to protect themselves in their war against the U.S. government. Your weapons are going to be used to perpetuate that war, increasing the likelihood that you will in fact be used as a human shield. Meanwhile, during this war, all of the luxuries you have grown used to as a U.S. citizen—the ability to drive to work without being shot at, the ability to access the Internet, go to the movies, purchase safe, healthy food in supermarkets: all that will be gone until the conflict ends.

You are right in your conclusion, but wrong about how it happens. The way tyranny is overcome is through non-cooperation, even to the point of death, because tyrants depend on our support and our cowardice. It’s not through the use of assault weapons.

ConcernedCitizen

Your reference to the Branch Davidian’s notwithstanding, thanks for the comment. My point is that civil unrest is more likely than an all out assault by the government. In that scenario, I prefer to protect what is mine against aggressors of any sort.

I think the right to bear arms is necessary and has proven beneficial throughout history , in fact, well after the signing of the Bill of Rights in 1791. All through the civil war, for example, small state militias were formed and reformed to serve whichever side they were fighting for. They provided training, strategic leadership and weaponry to the citizen volunteers.

Their level of organization may not have been “gubmint” quality as the blog author suggests, but I think the blog author erroneously maintains that the “gubmint” forces would remain intact and not disband while the “gubmint” was turning on it’s own citizens, or class of citizenry (let’s say the wealthy). I don’t think that it is too far a reach in these times to anticipate and prepare for the possibility of “civil” war right here in the USA. People are extremely polarized and muck-raking superheroes and antagonists abound. Our own President uses inflammatory rhetoric against Republicans and certain classes. It incites this craziness.

It should suffice to say that we live in a crazy world and guns are inanimate – not crazy. Crazy people will commit crimes such as the Sandy Hook massacre, and as horrible as that may be, disarming innocent people will not protect innocent people.

http://www.ericgarland.co ericgarland

“we live in a crazy world and guns are inanimate” – this is the mindset that so many Americans are coming to find as toxic. This is all situation normal to people like you. Well, goodie gumdrops. I’m glad you have normalized the murder of children for your absurd fantasy that you will overthrow the government with your toy guns, or that you will become the town marshal after the police desert you, or whatever. Well, if this is “what Americans are like” then it’s becoming intolerable. Perhaps people like me should move to Australia or Scotland or Belgian, civilized places where you’re 1000 times less likely to be shot while buying some frozen yogurt or going to school.

Or maybe we just need to start ignoring people like you and your John Wayne policies. My ancestors started this place. Perhaps you can ship off. Try Somalia. Very little government and you can stay as armed as you please. Flights leave daily.

RM3 Frisker FTN

Eric – for some reason you forgot to mention the idyllic European country of Switzerland as a destination for “people like you”; although almost every home in Switzerland has at least one scary ‘assault rifle’ and a thousand rounds of ammo to go with it. Many US news stories about lawful self-defense using firearms cataloged at the “Guns Save Lives” website (gunssavelives-dot-net). Better to focus our energies on cleaning up the mess caused by deinstitutionalizing the mentally ill that has lead to mass-murders.

stevenharnack

Switzerland is a small, tightly organized society, so different from America that your comparison is laughable. Every male is also required to be in the military reserve, as in “well ordered militia”. People with your attitude strike me as people just waiting and hoping for a chance to prove your fantasy.

http://pulse.yahoo.com/_L2N6WVT6X7MKQEDCDIUYGNCZ2E YourMaster

REALITY – How about some reality instead of fantasy? Visit the “Guns Save Lives” website (Link here – http://gunssavelives.net/category/self-defense/ ) to read the numerous stories of legal, legitimate, self-defense by ordinary citizens minding their own business until a nut case decides to inflict chaos on their lives, their neighbors/customers, their property. Just keep scrolling. Click each link.

REALITY – Again how about some reality instead of fantasy? Read a long legal brief detailing the strong connection between mental illness and mass murder. Ponder why mass murder is becoming more common with each passing year since about 1970. After reading the paper, cataloging the incidents, you may realize the real problem isn’t guns, rather it is our refusal as a society to care for the mentally ill. (Link here – http://www.fed-soc.org/publications/detail/madness-deinstitutionalization-murder )

SWITZERLAND – Nicolas Taleb recently described Switzerland as the most boring country in Europe – “Most decisions are made at the local
level, which allows for distributed errors that don’t adversely affect the
wider system” unlike say the USA or Europe. Switzerland is also not “tight-knit” – four cultures in one (e.g. Romansh, French, German, Italian), until about 70-years ago transit between their municipal states was difficult over high mountain passes. Reading Nicolas Taleb, I might also conclude that until about 1930s, both Switzerland and the USA were rather alike; however, several things changed in the USA (but not in Switzerland) since about 1930s. The USA _had_ strong federalism – its states _were_ all powerful. Switzerland still has their strong municipal state system of government. The USA _was_ more keen to hospitalize the mentally ill. Guessing Switzerland has always been hospitalizing the mentally ill, if they stop then mass-murder will become more common in Switzerland (Link here – http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2012/10/08/epiphanies_from_nassim_nicholas_taleb ).

While I don’t disagree that we need better health care for the mentally ill, that is only one part of the solution. And I am not opposed to armed self defense. I just don’t believe you need an assault weapon to do it.

Eric; love your comments. I oppose assault weapons and I personally have no intention of being forced to move to another country because of the idiots who think they will someday win their ‘little war’ (just like in the movies!) and save freedom! with their assault weapons. They are going to have to get used to the fact that a large number of people in this country have had enough carnage and are willing to stand up and be counted. I’m tired of the lame ‘guns don’t kill people’ arguments and the stupid second amendment fantasies. Please keep writing your blogs and help bring more people to their senses.

http://profiles.google.com/mellon Edward Lemon

Ah, the survivalist scenario, where the person who has all the guns in their house is able to fend off marauders. The problem with this is that all the marauders attacking you needs to do is burn you out or wait you out. Asymmetric attacks work, and you can’t stay inside your house forever. Your beloved children and wife are all hostages to your cooperation. All the guns in the world will not put the brains back in your beloved child’s skull. So if you want to keep those brains where they belong, you should be working on preserving society and the rule of law, not planning for its breakdown.

Geenius_at_Wrok

No one should use “literally” and “decimated” in the same sentence, unless you’re referring to choosing victims by counting off by tens.

F18Grouch

Many valid points, with one glaring exception – Assault weapons are already illegal in CT. If anything that shoots a big hole in the theory that tighter laws will in some way make us safer.

MomsHugs

The shooter’s mother was the owner of all 3 weapons (& perhaps a few more). Are you trying to say this kind-hearted kindegarten teacher did not own them legally? Please post your source. Thank you.

MomsHugs

F18Grouch: Well I looked up CT statutes & you are correct. Sec. 53-202c states that possession of a defined assault weapon is prohibited & a Class D Felony (or a Class A Misdemeanor for first offense) – with specified exceptions for authorized law enforcement. So perhaps the reporters were incorrect that the guns were legally owned by his mother, and will get it straight before Monday.

F18grouch

MomsHugs, thank you. It’s almost never that someone writes in one of these discussions then corrects themselves if in error. i am more than willing to debate and discuss the issues of guns. Right now I remain in prayer and deep mourning for the victims, their families, the responders and so many people in that small town and in our country. I think emotions are too high to have a meaningful, logical, civil debate on guns, teacher’s unions or prayer in schools for that matter. But for some reason our society has come out firing on the internet every time there’s an issue and too few people do the simple research that you just did.
Merry Christmas to you and yours!

betty

Hi there Eric… did you see the picture of the little boy who did the shooting? Yes, he’s just a little child too. My youngest will be 20 in a month, and I look at him and his skinny little friends, and I can’t imagine any of them being sick enough or in enough emotional pain to commit such an act. Horrible tragedy from every possible angle. This country has more weapons than sense, and our system for identifying and helping the mentally ill can’t keep pace with our ability to develop mental illness.

http://www.ericgarland.co ericgarland

Hi Betty – you’re right – the real issue is why we are producing killers at this rate.

I knew one of the prosecutors in Washington DC. He tried people for murder all the time. He recounted, “You read these horrific stories, then they bring the perp in, and he’s a skinny 19 year old kid with a baby face. You try to reconcile the story with the person. It’s madness.”

RM3 Frisker FTN

Eric – Sorry for being repetitive; however THANK YOU for pointing out “the real issue is why we are producing killers at this rate”. Lawyer & Software Engineer Clayton Cramer has written extensively on the WHY. He attempts to answer such in his legal article “Madness, Deinstitutionalization & Murder”, listing too many sad incidents (names, dates, places) to count of the mentally ill killing others and themselves, in addition to just dying of hypothermia (http://www.fed-soc.org/publications/detail/madness-deinstitutionalization-murder). You earlier mentioned your wife is an ER doc. Consequently, I think you can second check the article’s medical+legal details of mental illness interactions with public safety with your ER doc specialist.

Betty, I agree with you about more weapons than sense & mental illness that is getting ignored. However, I can’t agree that a 20 year old is a “little child” when age 18 is considered the age of adulthood. It isn’t how skinny the body, it is how skinny the minds & our society has determined them to be old enough to use their reasoning skills as adults for all purposes from voting, drinking, serving in the military and committing crimes. The basic question is whether children are prepared for adult responsibilities by age 18.

Bryan Kennedy

Absolutely, we are negligent of our society’s responsibility to raise children to adults. We keep them distant and neglect their needs. We neglect their angst. Then we expect them to take it all with a grain of salt and behave just because that is what they are “suppose to do”. It isn’t one bit sensible.

MomsHugs

Sales of assault weapons – handguns & AR-15 type rifles – have skyrocketed w/in 10 years because people have been manipulated by fear. A NC organization is writing legislation & lobbying for CCW in gun-free zones in every state. Why? Follow the money! It leads to gun manufacturers’ profits from increased sales, which is used to support a very nice lifestyle for their executives, but also for NRA execs. An former NRA VP wrote a book about it several years ago, but it failed to get any attention, let alone any traction.

This issue is NOT political! Good people in both political parties own guns – some responsibly, some not so much, with horrible consequences. It’s all about money… MANUFACTURERS have reaped huge profits from manipulating people into fearful purchases of incredibly expensive military-style assault weaponry.

It is simply time for our society to get a grip!

http://www.facebook.com/HarperGreerMangini Harper Greer Mangini

The most intelligent, relevant and sane comment on this thread. Thank you, Voice of Reason!!!

Vigilant Satyr

The vast majority are responsible and a very tiny minority are not. More than 270,000,000 guns are owned in the United States and fewer than 25,000 are used in a crime or involved in accidents every year. That is roughly .01 percent. Crime statistics in every location that bans guns show that crime rises when the populace is disarmed. “Gun related” crime may go down since guns are not used frequently where they are not easily available, but there is a reason that guns are called “equalizers,” which has a lot to do with the ability of a 90 pound woman being able to stop a 200 pound attacker with a 2 pound handgun.

There are not many issues that are more political than this.

http://www.facebook.com/debra.a.ball Debra Ann Ball

Will you please pay attention to the fact that the debate at hand is about assault weapons. You are using the famous straw man tactic; steering the debate away from assault weapons over to hand guns and hunting rifles. The proposal before Congress is to eliminate assault weapons -not to ban the sale of more ordinary guns. Your statistics about the number of all guns and crime rates are irrelevant to this discussion.

Vigilant Satyr

Perhaps you can define what you mean by “Assault” weapon then. All guns are capable of firing bullets and the way that politicians have so far decided to define “Assault” weapons is to say that if it looks mean, it’s an “Assault” weapon.
The only statistic I referenced was the estimated number of guns owned by Americans, a very relevant statistic when one is discussing how many firearms were used in a mass murder compared to how many guns are in circulation.

Travis

You cannot gain freedom by giving up liberty.

mapaiko

Better watch it bro, you may become the smartest person on the internet

MominNC

Just wanted to point out that some well armed states did try to defeat the US gov’t back in the 19th century. They failed miserably after the deaths of over 300,000 soldiers even with the arms situation more even than it is now. It wasn’t possible in the 1860’s and I agree that it certainly isn’t possible now.

RobertFromUSA

Right.. Because the South just ran out of bullets and guns… There weren’t ANY economic factors.. Oh wait, the ENTIRE CIVIL WAR was about States’ Rights and the fact that ending slavery would mean bad things for the Southern economy.

Alexander Ramos

Some people says many of these guns are for self-defense, but I still have not seen a news with the title…
“Man armed with a semi-automatic AR-15 riffle, stopped a massacre in a daycare”

innomen

Because gun control types have successfully made it illegal to have guns even in well trained perfectly sane hands anywhere near schools. You might as well use the inside of a air plane as an argument as well.

If anything the parade of massacres is proof of failed policy, and now your logic is broken enough to use the problem your policy creates as evidence in favor of more bad policy.

This political block’s irrational fear is literally killing people, and now using those deaths begging for more of the same.

RappinJoeyC

Thats right! Listen to this man everyone. Any child without a gun is as good as dead in our society!

So you’re saying that if somebody in that school had a gun handy, it would’ve prevented that man from walking into that school unannounced, opening the door to a classroom and firing on innocents? As soon as he walked in, our armed hero would have materialized behind him and plugged him in the brain with his 45? Genius.

innomen

Think it through. If children are the most valuable part of our society (which they are), and we moved them every day to a known location (which we do), and we knew they are occasionally under armed attack (which they are), would it not make sense to guard them? Would it not make sense to provide those guards with arms?

We guard our shopping malls with more conviction than we guard our children.

And why? Because we refuse to spend a dime on education that we aren’t absolutely forced to, and even if schools were fully funded the anti gun types would have a seizure over the thought of armed guards being a part of their security.

Sidenote: It should really give you pause how radically you have to distort my words to even come up with a semblance of an argument.

But enjoy the last word, I’m setting an email filter now. There is no reasoning with this crowd.

Rappin’ Joey C

Now that is an actual argument, especially compared to your previous string of words which was devoid of content. I figured I should give like to like with my previous comment.

Concerning guarding schools, that would not be such a bad idea were it not for the students themselves (at least if were talking about older children). Have you ever seen how a prison is guarded? Guards within the facility, close to the inmates, do not carry firearms on their persons normally. This opens up the possibility of an inmate procuring a handgun. Not a very realistic scenario in a kindergarten, though once you put junior high or high school kids in the equation it becomes more plausible. If approached the wrong way, a guard “solution” becomes a real problem. What I have seen in my areas is that they have very regular police presence around the schools, though not mingling within the halls, and that seems to provide a deterant from OUTSIDE violence, it by no means entirely prevents a gunman scenario. Nothing short of locking our children up as if they WERE actually inmates could prevent someone from finding an ideal opportunity to enter and kill.

I feel as though you missed the point of the article and even the OP’s comment, even if you wanted armed guards in schools they would a) not need auto or semi-auto rifles to protect and deter, and b) have you seen connecticut’s gun control laws? If a person has permission from the school, they can have a gun on its property. The “only” thing stopping a school from having guards there is funding – which is part of your argument, and I agree with you entirely that there needs to be more money allocated to education and it’s a shame nobody wants to put up for it – and the problem there is that many, many people who are pro-gun are anti-education funding because they have no faith in public education for one reason or another. You’ll know exactly what I mean if you’ve spent any time in Louisiana. The state has made many poor decisions where education is concerned and noone wants to fund the schools, public education there is a joke and the teachers are deplorable. Everyone wants to point out what is wrong with it but noone wants to provide the tools to fix it. Not only that but opposition to gun control and compromise from one end or another is a cause for incomplete or even illogical laws, it doesn’t all rest on the shoulders of one side. One might say that that could be said for anything, though. Gun control laws are evolving, which is good because knee jerk changes one way or the other are dangerous as well.

And to say I would have to distort your words to create and argument countering yours doesn’t seem to ring so true anymore, does it? Especially when you consider how fully you distorted the previous commenter’s short idea about the role of such weapons, as if one needs a stripped down m-16 for defense purposes on the civilian level. Hey, they are fun to shoot – don’t get me wrong – but weapons as those aren’t designed for defense. Hence the “Assault” portion of the name Assault Rifle. It doesn’t take a .223 AR-15 modified for full auto with a new spring or reciever (both legal to buy online) to defend your home or yourself in public. So using that as an arguement doesn’t seem to hold up well.

I will say, though, personally I do not feel the need to ban assault weapons entirely. But procurement of these weapons needs to be regulated more, in my opinion. And parts to turn a semi-auto to an auto need be banned in the civilian realm. Like I said, it takes very little to turn an ar-15 into an m-16, and getting the parts for that is not illegal.

Rappin’ Joey C

Well, I should say “not ALWAYS illegal”.

RobertFromUSA

There are already schools that have armed police officers IN and AROUND them. I went to these schools. They are not prisons. They are not locked down any more than a daycare would be (they don’t let students out, and visitors are verified, registered, and clearly marked before entry). The “Prison Guards” as you would call them do not harass the students. The students think twice before even touching the police officer. Have you never heard of a retention holster? It’s what police use to prevent other people from grabbing their weapon. Police officers in schools use these. If there had been armed police officers inside the schools that day, the guy wouldn’t have gotten as far as he did. Period.

One day, in my senior year of high school, I was in biology class and a man (who we later found out was the drunk father of a student in the classroom) began pounding on the outside of the classroom windows and screaming something. Our teacher immediately jumped up to shut off the lights in the room, got us away from the window, and called the front office. Within a MINUTE the screaming had stopped and there were two police officers there… one out in the hallway, and one outside detaining the man. The police officers were armed, available, and alert. From the initial screaming to the final clicks of the handcuffs, it all took LESS than 2 minutes… The officers had already spotted a man walking around the school and were on their way regardless of the teacher’s call to the front office. These police officers weren’t amateurs, they train for this sort of thing. That was 10 years ago. We should at least have that level of security nowadays.

So you’re telling me that nothing could save those kids other than gun control? Hmm.. yeah it’s not like there are other easy ways of killing lots of people.. except for homemade explosives. Ever heard of an IED? That’s just one of the methods that “bad” people in “those other countries” use to hurt people instead of guns. Most people don’t realize/remember that the Columbine High School incident was not a “successful school shooting”, it was a “failed school bombing”. Aside from the pipe bombs that they had brought, the “main event” was supposed to involve two 20lb homemade bombs that thankfully failed to yield their intended explosion.

Their plan was to create a huge explosion in the cafeteria during the busiest time of day in order to kill and injure as many people as possible, while they waited outside the school’s main exits to shoot and kill fleeing survivors. The only thing that saved those hundreds of students in the cafeteria was probably careless explosive preparation. The idea is still possible and plausible today, and there are all kinds of homemade nastiness that can be made with stuff from “Home Depot”. Even portable explosives are possible which can be carried around in a bag and used much like fragmentation grenades.

People with malicious intent will always find a way to cause violence. Career criminals and those with enough willpower/anger always find weapons. How will you defend yourself and your family when they do if guns are illegal? You can sit there and hope that “police response time” isn’t the death of you, while the real men take action. You do not gain safety by giving up liberty. You want someone to babysit you and protect your family for you. You bring us all down with your cowardice.

And you realize we are talking about CHILDREN here. The guy could have gone mental with a machete hidden under his shirt and still caused a lot of damage.

Rappin’ Joey C

Calling me a coward, eh Casanova? I may have taken that as an insult if it weren’t so blatantly obvious that you retained no information from my preceding comment. If there was anything you could pull from my last comment, it would be the fact that if there is evil intent than there lies opportunity to exact it. A suicide bomber outside of a bus stop could satisfy the requisite deaths to satisfy a massacre. That does not mean allowing automatic weapons to be easily available is a responsible standpoint.

As I was saying before, if you want a guard scenario than it has to be an intelligently encountered issue – and trust me, 2 minutes is more than enough time to inflict death. One dpes not even have to enter a school with a gun to do so. Hey, look! A window. Problem solved. I do not argue against guarding schools, but it must be viewed realistically. And I do know what a retention holster is, and it is preventative – one can get a gun out of any level retention holster, though it is only realistic if there is a group against the officer.

An IED? Nope never heard of – wait, you mean something I recieve training on regularly as well as specifically when I almost was apart of Convoy duty on Iraq before my orders were canceled? Oh yes, I do know what an IED is, after all. Behold, something else to make my point!

Let me ask you a question. What is the difference between an improvised explosive device and a gun? The amount of preparation involved for the user. In which case, using columbine as an example does not support your argument very well. Which failed in this case, the guns or the explosives? You said it yourself, the explosives failed due to… inadaquite preparation? Because it’s more difficult to create a bomb than to load a clip, maybe?

I’m sorry if my logic gets in the way of your action, big bad Mr. Real man! After all your years of fighting injuns and terrorists off your personal property – no one should question the right of a man to own the bigest badest guns out there and leave them out for any two year old to get their hands on like a steak knife left on a counter. But none of your reasoning is convincing in making assault weapons easily accessable to the general public. If anything, you make a case for monitering certain substances for bomb creation as if they were over the counter drugs used to create meth

Rappin’ Joey C

Oh man, i almost missed how you used police response time to support your argument initially, then denounce it later on! Where are you from? Colorado? How’s the new marajuana law treating you? Looks like it’s treating you well.

http://facebook.com/frank.castle.5283166 Frank Castle

BTW, you can’t legally buy a firearm at retail if you smoke pot. Even for medicinal purposes. Question 11e on the f4473. The legal definition for habitual: a person who has repeatedly committed the same act or action.

http://facebook.com/frank.castle.5283166 Frank Castle

“but it must be viewed realistically” , funny how only you get to define “realisticly”.

Travis

Right on! Thank you for your excellent explanation and points. I am going to have to share them with friends on Facebook

http://www.facebook.com/sean.gossage.7 Sean Gossage

…and at what time do the defenders of children become the guards of them?

http://www.facebook.com/AndyReid152 Andy Reid

No, but neither is removing the disconnector in an AR15. It may not have the sear delay, but it will spray em down range. There are several other tricks. Homemade at that. Good luck with your regulation. Compliance for these laws will go down as they become more relevant.

http://facebook.com/frank.castle.5283166 Frank Castle

What? Remove the disconector? You mean you criminally manufacturered a machine gun in violation of the NFA? Nice. Want to mention just who you are and where you live? Don’t be afraid, no one else will know.

Designed from scratch to eliminate a threat of grave physical injury and/or death. Exactly what it’s purpose is.

galen066

You don’t need to arm every child to defend them. Just build high walls, top them with barbed wire, controlled access gates, and uniformed goons. And then you have your chance to indoctrinate the little darlings in the ideology of your choice.

Does that sound like a prison or a gulag? You bet! Or… you could just call them your average urban school.

http://facebook.com/frank.castle.5283166 Frank Castle

PS163 and pretty much any High School in any predominantly minority neighborhood in NYC.

Lisztman

Let me give you a dose of reality, sir. There is, at my local HS, a properly trained and experienced member of the local PD on full-time duty at the HS during school hours. His purpose there is to break up fistfights. To create a presence for would-be fistfighters. To instill in the students a respect for law officers. And a host of other reasons.

But to assume that said officer is capable of fighting off a whacko armed with the sort of armory possessed by the Newtown perp? I can say with certainty that, had he been in the right part of the building to encounter him, he MIGHT have had the presence of mind to shoot him in the face, knowing that body armor would render most shots useless for much more than perhaps knocking him down. But it’s much more highly likely that he’d have been shot on sight, just as were the principal and school psychologist.

That’s just the HS (and the Jr. High, in the contiguous building complex). There are four elementary schools as well. Unprotected. There aren’t many fist fights in the elementary schools that can’t be broken up by any reasonable adult or two. So you would add, at a minimum, four trained (and, presumably, paid) law-enforcement officers.

Now some more reality. Far too many citizens today are crying for better education in one breath and, in the next, voting down school budgets. “Those overpaid teachers.” (Tell that to the teachers in Newtown who did everything they could for their charges, to their dying breaths.) The same teachers who, at least in New York State, are required to finish Grade 17 (that’s a Master’s Degree). In the current round of budget woes, most school districts are dramatically cutting programs and courses. And laying off (which is a euphemism for firing when you don’t have a justifiable reason for firing) teachers.

So in your “let’s throw in another phalanx of law-enforcement to protect them all”, are the same people — who already reject budgets and fire the education professionals because they’re too cheap to seek quality education for their kids — going to suddenly come up with another 100, 200, 500K, or the millions, necessary to place these officers? Which Kool-Aid have you been drinking?

Putting firearms in close proximity to children, or young adults, is NOT a good mix. Ask the good citizens of Newtown, who found out what happened when one mixed-up late adolescent found himself too close to firearms. What happens when a group of 17-year-olds with too much testosterone decide to “have some fun” with the “dookie cop” and disarm him (a NOT unrealistic scenario)? You REALLY don’t understand adolescents, or kids, very well, do you?

————

On the possibility that anyone may read this who has close ties to our recently deceased… This was written with the best of intentions toward stopping the madness. I could not bear to listen to all of President Obama’s speech from Sunday evening; I was crying too hard. You have my deepest sympathies. And for those brave teachers who gave their everything to protect their kids. More tears. If we can draw anything positive from the incalculable tragedy of last Friday morning, I hope that it is to help push this Nation into doing something right.

My biggest problem in all of everything I’ve read from the right-wing cold-dead-fingers put-guns-in-the-schools nutjobs is that I doubt that ANY of them has even tried to ask a teacher for an opinion. The arguments they pose go beyond outlandish.

Written here by one who has helped to shepherd two wonderful children to adulthood, and who, 37 years ago, married one of those hundreds of thousands of teachers nationwide who would equally and as quickly have thrown themselves in front of the weapon to save the children.

My very first thought after the CT shootings was that if it had been in my husband’s school, he would have given his life for those kids. A sad, morbid thought, but true. If the whole reason behind arming our teachers and defending our schools is because we “value our children” how about we invest in their education and mental welfare so kids don’t slip between the cracks. How about we help those that have no chance otherwise to change their situation. Coming from a long line of well educated (masters degrees, national board certified, edd degree) teachers, it is quite obvious that if you give a kid a chance to succeed, they will take it, you just have to get to them early enough. We should take a page out of Finland’s book, only the top few percent actually get to become teachers and they are given the same respect as doctors. They have an amazingly high graduation rate and good test scores, but more importantly, an overall good quality of life and a healthy respect for humanity.

http://facebook.com/frank.castle.5283166 Frank Castle

“If a responsible, mentally sound American wants to own and AR-15, that’s their right. Besides, when the zombies come -okay, you don’t like the zombie thing. When the Chinese invade our country, who do you want to depend on? The over-extended police force and the National Guard? Or the next door neighbor who’s a former Marine and has enough guns and ammunition for your entire block??”
― Aaron B. Powell

Lisztman

I’ll take our military over theirs, TYVM. I’d rather my next-door neighbor didn’t have more than he needs for self-protection (a simple handgun, or a shotgun), or perhaps a choice of hunting rifles.

http://facebook.com/frank.castle.5283166 Frank Castle

Why do you fear his possessions? If he collected Tracked Vehicles, would you be fearful?

http://www.facebook.com/green.winnebago Josh Gardner

Let me fix that for you. “When the Chinese invade out country*, who do you want do depend on? The United States Military, which is by far the best-trained, armed and funded military in human history, and spends significantly more on its military than China, Russia, India, France, Britain, Germany, Israel, Iran, North Korea and South Korea combined? Or a bunch of disorganized, drunken yahoos with small arms?”

-A delusional right-winger

*The idea that China would attempt to attack America, let alone successfully carry out a large-scale invasion, is ridiculous. Why would they try to attack a trade partner who they’re interdependent with, especially when America’s military is so much more powerful than China’s? Why would they attack us when they could face nuclear retaliation? The only way China could invade the United States is if they somehow managed to pull off a full-scale nuclear strike against America’s cities and military bases. And if that happened… well, there wouldn’t be much for us to defend, and there wouldn’t be much for China to invade.

http://facebook.com/frank.castle.5283166 Frank Castle

Is that the very same China that is slaughtering our Dollar? Does no one recognize that us (U.S.) are at War with China at this very moment?

Personally owned Small Arms are for Defensive Purposes only. If you have no plans on attacking me, then you have nothing to fear from my guns. This government doesn’t own any Defensive Guns; theirs are all offensive.

http://www.facebook.com/austin.miller.5203577 Austin Miller

You idiot. Have you heard of the saying” Enemies, foreign and domestic?LOL

http://facebook.com/frank.castle.5283166 Frank Castle

“Gun control? My wife had a job for three years before she found out that her boss was a convicted sex offender -a child molester. She used to take our son to work with her. When we found out, she quit her job and filed for unemployment, but was denied because she didn’t have to quit. That’s a true story. I wonder what would happen if a young child walked into a room full of child molesters and executed them with an AR-15? What would congress have to say about gun control then??”
― Aaron B. Powell

http://www.facebook.com/austin.miller.5203577 Austin Miller

When did he state that, liar?LOL It wouldn’t prevent it, but that person would be meeting his maker shortly. Are you saying that a man or woman packing a gun in defense of children can’t kill or stop another human, but a wacko committing a mass shooting can kill and or stop another human being? LOL You are either the biggest liar ever or a complete retard. And yes, signs saying “WE are armed” do deter shootings LOL

http://www.facebook.com/people/Peter-Buka/100003402415168 Peter Buka

To blame the killings on prevention of easy access to firearms is shallow and lazy reasoning.
Shallow thinkers focus on symptoms.
True thinkers focus on causation.

bloggerton

Thank you for the lecture Peter.

http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=546092083 Terry Mcintyre

The media almost never reports cases of self-defense. There are about 750,000 to 2.5 million cases of self-defense per year, and they almost never make national news; in fact, they’re often not reported even in the local news. If there’s no blood – which is true in over 90% of self-defense cases – then it certainly isn’t the lead story. BTW, you might want to google “argument from ignorance.”

http://www.facebook.com/HarperGreerMangini Harper Greer Mangini

How about you narrow those stats a bit. . .that’s a might large chasm you’ve got growing on your post. For that reason alone, I call Bee. . .SSSSS!

Travis

He pointed out his sources and yet you are too lazy to put in ANY effort to possibly disprove your own preconceived beliefs and perspective. Nice.

bloggerton

If you have these facts, please do share them. Otherwise, maybe you’d like to Google “argument from making stuff up”.

Vigilant Satyr

According to Dr. Gary Kleck, criminologist at Florida State University
in Tallahassee and author of “Point Blank: Guns and Violence in
America,” a book used by many in the gun debate, 800,000-2,500,000
crimes are stopped by guns each year. The numbers are from different
studies but you can start with that book which cites all of the studies used to make that claim.

RM3 Frisker FTN

There are many firearm self-defense stories here at “Guns Save Lives” (gunssavelives-dot-net). Just keep scrolling.

SS

The NRA and other gun “rights” lobbies also feed you “scholarly” lies about those stories. Read an actual peer-reviewed journal article for once.

“For every time a gun in the home was used in a self-defense or legally justifiable shooting, there were four unintentional shootings, seven criminal assaults or homicides, and 11 attempted or completed suicides.” http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9715182

Truth hurts

Actually this has happened twice this year : once with an M-4 Once with an Ar-15 both in Mn, once in saint cloud once in Bemidji. Both disarmed the would be shooters, and waited for PD to arrive

fed up

I know this is old, but only a few days ago, a young man, think the story said 13, stopped two armed men breaking into his home while he was alone. Didn’t make the national news, as it does fit the agenda the news is pushing. Plus AR-15’s are a very popular rifle with women for defense in the home as it is light and handy and still can stop the target easily.

http://www.facebook.com/austin.miller.5203577 Austin Miller

When did they start allowing AR 15’s in daycare centers? LOL:)

PatriotNewsNetwork1

are you insane, people kill people defending their homes with them, and SEMI AUTO RIFLES are used in about 1% of crimes, and cheap 50 dollar handguns are used in like 90%. I don’t care if 1,000 kids got killed, AR-15’s are the only thing that stops a president from declaring himself king. 100,000 dead kids are not even worth loosing liberty. Gotta love girly liberals that cry

http://twitter.com/Eykis Eykis

Eric, EXCELLENT ARTICLE, Thank you.

yada

I think the insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan that have prevented us from victory there would have something to say about fighting the US army with rifles, small arms, and home-made bombs.

MomsHugs

yada ~ Are you referring to the IEDs that have been so damaging to our troops? I was a young mother during Vietnam when our troops had to contend with being suckered by elderly VC & children, too. The paradigm of war had shifted & the enemy was no longer recognizable by a uniform. Our ‘boys’ that returned home were shell-shocked in a different way than their fathers/uncles were in WWII. Anyway you slice it, any kind of war is HELL, and the reason why continued efforts to polarize our citizenry should be avoided!!

http://www.ericgarland.co ericgarland

To those making the argument that U.S. military is being “defeated” by small arms in Iraq and Afghanistan – a quick point. There is an enormous difference between a fraction of the U.S. military trying to keep “order” in Central Asia – and THE ENTIRE U.S. MILITARY operating on American soil, where it has every supply line, command of the telecommunications system, control of roads and airports, etc. If you think you stand a chance of WINNING, not harassing the winners, but actually overthrowing a “rogue state,” I think you need to check out the latest technologies and tactics from our world-class military and think about it long and hard. You want to go against the greatest fighting force in history? Good luck. I’ll spend my time writing.

MomsHugs

Eric ~

Me thinks those who argue against the point of your post doth protest too much, but then believe they have the rest of us in agreement with them. Well. . . that’s the trouble with echo chambers. If they want to hide out in the hills & chat with each other, that’s fine with me. However, I have a big problem when they want to come to town with automatic weapons hanging all over themselves with no legitimate purpose. Women, as well as men, are caught up in this crazy network of fear mongering survivalist mumbo-jumbo. They are the folks I fear will act out their paranoia or imagined ‘glorification’ as one of Rosenbaum’s, aka Ayn Rand’s, fictional heroes.

Frankly, I do NOT want to watch Apache videos taking out our own ‘crazies’ on the evening news! Please keep on keeping on for the rest of our sakes. We need to know reason does persist.

Thank you! Hugs ~ Moms

NateW

Hundreds of thousands will put up one hell of a fight before they die for this. Those “cold, bloody hands” statements are not just whimsical. Will they “win”? The Afghans seem to have been able to for over 40 years, first with Russia deciding it was too hard, and now the US. No, probably not, though, nobody will win except for China. But if that’s what it comes to, that’s what America is about, fighting for freedom no matter what the consequences. Hey, isn’t that the way we started out? But alas, that spirit is gone, liberalized away.

I pity the poor military personnel being forced to shoot their own fellow citizens; this will also make them very less likely to do as well as they have everywhere else in the world; many won’t at all, and the ranks will be heavy with distension. So many of your arguments won’t fly at all, the “gunners” will be the best the military could ever face by far, and the military will be at it’s least effectiveness ever. Hmmm, maybe there is a chance.

You could probably eliminate 90% of the youth doing these kinds of things by getting rid of the extremely graphic and violent video games that deaden their senses about death to the point that they can do this, but hey, the industry says that isn’t true, so I guess that’s not it.

And how about growing up with a little fear to keep kids straight? No, some guy that’s kid committed suicide told us 40 years ago that spanking was very bad, and it caught on. Put ‘em, in a corner where they won’t regret anything and they’ll use the time figuring out how to not get caught next time instead. Zero discipline, all it does is make them madder at you.

What, spanking doesn’t work? Let’s see, 7-9 thousand years of it working, and none of these problems . . . 30 years of not, and wham! Basic troubleshooting, whatever you changed last is the most likely cause.

Very sad, the US will quicken it’s downwards spiral towards oblivion with the onset of this stupidity; it’s already well on it’s way. Oh, and and Michiganders passed the Right to Work for Lower Wages bill, another kick on the way down, we’ll all be serfs once the unions are gone. Thanks for helping destroy America!

Quite a bit of irony in the fact that real, fully automatic assault rifles will be used against the ones that want to keep the same, as commanded by the demands of the very ones that want all of the guns to go away anyway! Wow, that just blows my mind!

OK, I’ll leave you all alone to your own opinion, this post obviously won’t do anything but make me feel better; I’m unfriending and leaving here. But hey, at least the revolution should make for some pretty interesting TV, huh? Enjoy watching your fellow Americans being shot to death.

Lana Babij

My own read on why so many people use the 2nd amendment to support their right to owning weapons is not that they want to take over or defend against the government, but that they want to protect themselves against unlawful or crazy folks who intrude on their property or who threaten them with bodily harm elsewhere. As you point out re Vermont – owning weapons does not in itself need to be the issue. (on the other hand, in the latest CDC report, for 2010, there were 54 “unintentional” firearms deaths of children under age 13 – mostly in the home, presumably. )

What is wrong with the existing law and its implementation and enforcement? How do ordinary citizens get assault weapons so easily? How do we protect our schools and public spaces without making it a police state? What in our society makes it easier for some people to objectify & target their fellow human beings, to get so riled up that they will deliberately and methodically plot the deaths of scores of others for revenge? for a cause? for fun?

http://www.ericgarland.co ericgarland

Right on – all good questions.

MomsHugs

Lana ~ Thanks for good Qs! Helps get the old noggin focused in the right direction for a good discussion here, in all the state legislatures & in the halls of Congress. For example – CT Criminal Code Sec. 53.202c prohibits possession of assault weapons that are clearly defined, with the exception of authorized law enforcement.

So… you’ll have to help us out here. Take Nancy Landz, who law enforcement stated legally owned a number of assault weapons, several of which were used to kill her & many others in a crime spree. Do you or anyone else know how CT implemented & enforced Criminal Code Sec. 53.202c? Do you or anyone know how & where Nancy Landz bought the guns? Those Q will hopefully get answered in a few days.

What in our society causes people to objectify other human beings? I say movies & television shows, but now I’ll be at the end of someone’s vitriol defending the same rather than seek deeper to find answers. We not only glorify violent means to settle disputes in such movies/TV shows, we have coarsened our culture with rudeness, too. Can we bring our culture back from this brink is my question?

As for this young killer, the investigators are saying they have recovered sufficient information from his mother’s home, as well as from his father & brother, to determine the motive for killing his mother then going on to kill strangers. I would not be surprised to learn that he killed her during an angry tirade, which triggered a psychotic break. In fact, I would bet the lottery on it.

RM3 Frisker FTN

Very true. Self defense is an important part of why the non-sportsperson buys a firearm in the first place. Apparently this is why the shooter’s mother had firearms in her house to begin with. The website GunsSaveLives-dot-net daily posts local news stories of ordinary citizens defending themselves, defending loved ones, defending their property from bigger, stronger, crazy people. Click their “Only Self Defense Stories” link.

Frosty

All I have to say is. . .

Frosty

Sure Gun control worked great for, Mao, Stalin, hitler, lennon, but how are their people doing? If you think that you can regulate out murder yer wrong. Criminals dont follow laws, thinkin such is folly and lacks critical thinking. The only people affected by laws are law abiding citizens. When that time comes one had better hope you have a way to defend yourself. If not, well look how it turned out for the people of the countrys in the aforementioned statement. With how close we are to a revolution in this country, is the only reason the Government want our guns. You think they care about some kids? If they did care they wouldn’t make the type of offering that they do in bohemian grove, but thats for another time. They are watching their own backs and continuing to polarize the people through mass media using fear tactics to enable regulation of a a logic-less plight. I dont fall for it.

Remember :
Does owning a computer make you a hacker?

Does owning a french chef knife, make you a slasher (or for that matter a 5 star chef)?

Does owning a car make you an indy driver?

Does owning a gun (or a few) to protect against psychopaths that wish to do harm to me, my friends, family, my community, make me a serial mass shooter?
I dont think so what do you think?

The answer is . . . _____ (<answer here)

Bill F.

Mao and Lenin did not come to power because of gun control. They each won a war against an equivalently armed opponent. Yes they instituted gun control later, they were dictators, but that was after the fact.

I don’t want to take away all of your guns. You have a right to reasonable firearms for shooting sports and defense. A 12-gauge is a great defensive weapon. What I don’t want you or anyone outside of the military to have is an AR with several 30 and 100 round magazines. If someone steels your eight-shot 30-06 and attacks a school with it, some innocents may die, but many will only be wounded. No one will get shot eleven times like some of the children at Sandy Hook.

http://www.facebook.com/Enniskillen Jeffrey Lee Virgin

Does having a gun in the house make it easier for a whack job relative to kill school children ? The answer is….

sailor mike

and again the fact still remains if we outlaw automatic guns, only the outlaws will have them. deminishing yet another form of revenue, unless you’re an outlaw

Jon Van de Grift

Wonderfully written, Eric. Thanks for your thoughts.

http://sitemaster.com.au Sitemaster

Great article, but the gun crazies will jump on any bandwagon to support their imaginary rights. I say imaginary because if, under the 2nd amendment they took up arms against they government, they would be toast in a day, so they hide behind the 2nd amendment

It seems that in the US you will be supported by the gun nutters if you kill people just so they can have their guns. They say killing is bad and I would never do that but I need my gun to defend myself against those that would. They will twist it one way and another, shout out 2nd amendment. really???

If there where no guns, and mean NO GUNS at all, what difference would it make to peoples rights? You can not over through the government with guns and you only kill when you use them.

The argument they use these days is that if you outlaw guns, only outlaws will have guns. And of course those outlaws will start invading homes en masse leaving you, the once responsible gun-owner, with no defence – When Australia banned guns, this did not happen and Australia is one of the safest places to live, unlike the US.

I know the gun nutters will never stop defending their rights so my advice is to leave the country now while your children are alive and have not been subject to the death of their friends, let them re-elect George Bush and wait till the econome fails, because instead of spending half of the money (thats the billions of dollars the US has to borrow each year to keep you in the lifestyle your so love) on the military it will spend much more and the people will think its great, we have our guns. I have an even better idea, make bullets $10,000.00 each and see how that works out.

The downward spiral has started yet you do not see it, The US does not have free medical, dental or look after the poor but all the safe countries do. The US has the biggest defence spend in the world and guns for everyone. You want everything and want to give nothing up for it. You are at hells gate now and all you need to do is turn around … but you wont.﻿

Come and tell me how wrong I am, tell me all about it, because you are just fooling yourself in believing you live in the greatest country in the world where you can carry a gun (woopie) where corporations rule what you watch, what you eat and how much you pay for your bullets.

http://www.facebook.com/5.0racing Herman Haake

You must understand that this author is referring to the ownership of these guns with that of overthrowing the government. Did he read what he was randomly posting to the internet before ever considering the history of mankind. Lets start with the Vietnam war. In the Vietnam war we had tanks, plans, helicopters and other means of unleashing complete domination on a people who only had man power and “Automatic Weapons” (the kind of weapons that are illegal to normal citizens in America and have never been found at school shootings and or the recent shooting at the theater in Colorado). The Vietcong were able to defeat are great nation of planes, tanks and helicopters with just simple tactics called gorilla warfare. Now lets fast forward a couple of years and now were fighting the war in Iraq. The terrorists can and have easily destroyed are tanks and jeeps with simple explosives that with the right google search anybody can learn how to make. These two examples are just the tip of the iceberg of all occurrences in mankind where the odds are stacked up against us and the little guy has prevailed. Your argument is an invalid argument to make sir and I want you to know that by posting this the only thing you have done successful is provide some simple technical knowledge of weaponry and done nothing more with your post.

One more thing I have to ask. When you get rid of assault rifles what can we put bans on next? maybe samurai swords? You cant stop insane people from doing what they are going to do but you can teach others how to protect themselves and provide them with the means to do so. Do criminals rob gun stores or police stations? The answer is no and why no? Because criminals know they wont live to see tomorrow.

‘who only had man power and “Automatic Weapons”‘ this is like the third time someone basically inferred the Vietnamese didn’t have access to high grade weapons systems. Someone might want to ask Senator John McCain how big the “Automatic Weapon” was that brought down his A4 or check with a Marine from the siege of Khe Sahn to confirm that those inbound rounds were from an AK-47.

This is silly. The point is that “well regulated militia” is right there in the Constitution along side the right to bear arms. The answer is that the general population should not independently own military grade weapons and that ownership must fall on a well regulated body that can assume the responsibility and more importantly liability of their use. In other words, if a weapon is used in a crime the civil liability falls on the owner of the weapon even if they are not involved in the crime, then the seller… then the wholesaler… then the manufacturer. It daisy chains up creating a massive liability for anyone owning/selling/manufacturing these weapons and creating, one would assume, a series of self regulatory measures the industry would have to impose themselves. Or they could just find themselves bankrupted by the civil suits of victims of gun violence.

http://www.facebook.com/Enniskillen Jeffrey Lee Virgin

Maybe if the only weapons available were “Samurai Swords” maybe more of those little kids would still be with us today.

Robb Greathouse

My family has lived in New Mexico for hundreds of years. It was one of the wilder of the wild west states (Billy the Kid, Lincoln County wars) and that is what sticks in the American psyche. What doesn’t seem to stick is that the settlement of the west is a story of gun control. It was the story of saying that justice and law and order is not left to the individual, it is for the society.

The other is how the Lincoln County wars were settled. It wasn’t by a shooting war with vigilantes. It was by sitting down and talking and working out water rights. No hero road in with a fast gun. People talked.

The west was settled by people saying no to guns. They were banded on the streets. When you came to town, you dropped your gun at the sheriff’s office and you got it again when you left. Contrary to popular media, people did not walk around with guns on their hips. No society can function that way. The NRA is pedaling a fantasy. It did not work in the “old days” and it will not work today.

MomsHugs

Robb, I like your post. Our nation surely does love its beloved cowboy myths! Actually so do people in other countries who like John Wayne movies… or so I was told by natives in SE Asia, but they had never heard of Wyatt Earp, go figure!

MomsHugs

Well, Eric ~ Time to put me out to pasture to watch a movie. You certainly gathered quite a few to your site, but not sure any minds in opposite camps were open to thinking differently. I did notice there is hope yet because positions on the ‘government is bad’ seem to overlap between the far left & far right. So, maybe we’ll see some type of agreement soon on, at minimum, a federal ban against citizens owning “assault weapons” with teeth in it to enforce. Hope it’s sooner, not later.

http://twitter.com/kitgainer2002 PoPfiction.com

My great great grand Ethan Allan had a solution. Beat up the red coats and take their cannons. And great great uncle Seth Warner just slaughtered them an mass with their own canons. Never underestimate America.

http://www.facebook.com/tnoble101 Teri Noble

Eric Garland you spoke more truth here today than anyone, anywhere. Thank You

http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=546092083 Terry Mcintyre

If ever there were a war against the government, it would be a civil war. It wouldn’t be rifles versus tanks, it would be tanks versus tanks and planes versus planes. A useful militia would be armed with the same weapons as the military; it would be a lot closer to the Swiss system than the American. Thus, your long spew of wasted electrons was worth approximately zero. Hope you feel better now. By the way, rifles were already available at the time of the Revolution.

RM3 Frisker FTN

Eric – ask your wife the ER Doctor about deinstitutionalization of the mentally ill before writing further on the tragedy in Newton CT.

Clayton Cramer, lawyer/software engineer is a victim of the deinstitutionalization of the mentally ill in America, claiming it is a crisis no one is talking about. His brother Ron was mentally ill. Ron hurt himself and society, while there was nothing Clayton or his family could do before those sad events happened.

Those events inadvertently set Clayton on a path to becoming an expert on mass murder, or at least a well read hobbyist on the matter. Odd writing that someone has “mass murder as a hobby”

Although separated by years and distance; I think your wife the ER doc can relate to Clayton’s message due to her interactions with the mentally ill in the ER.

He also wrote long legal brief about deinstitutionalization & mass murder, asking the hard question of “What changed” since the 1960s/1970s
[block quote]
For those of us who came of age in the 1970s, one of the most shocking aspects of the last three decades was the rise of mass public shootings: people who went into public places and murdered complete strangers. Such crimes had taken place before, such as the Texas Tower murders by Charles Whitman in 1966,1 but their rarity meant that they were shocking.

Something changed in the 1980s: these senseless mass murders started to happen with increasing frequency.
[/block quote]

Really ? I’m pretty sure he held the same rights as us to fair indictment and due process in a court of law, where burden of proof rests with the prosecution, before, not after his execution.

The US military is an effective insurgency routing machine that is pursuing “enemy combatants” and “terrorists” globally, across and inside countries we are not in any declared war with, murdering indiscriminately with drones those who just match the “signature” of terrorist activity, with resulting innocent lives lost in the thousands.

“yeah, but they’re terrorists, and there are terrorists in their communities!”

Oh, and wait, they’re brown and live thousands of miles from here and …. 9/11 !!!!!

Right. What you fail to see is that the instant you raise your voice against the government, or if you’re brave enough, raise a weapon…. You’re the terrorist. A terrorist for which a precedent has been set for your extra-judicial detention and death sentence.

While NRA wing-nuts cheer on the deaths of “terrorists” in foreign lands, they don’t realize they are also cheering on a totalitarian regime which they would have no hope of defeating with their 2nd amendment remedies. I know there are extreme right wing groups out there, they’re on the Feds’ radar, they are considered a threat.

What would I say to these folks who hold the revolutionary mindset in high regard: GET TO IT YOU IDIOTS.

Our government is the biggest most powerful threat its ever been, right now !

And then watch them fail miserably. Its too late.

While you cling to your gun and your “I voted” sticker take some comfort from the thought that both are utterly meaningless.

The best possible course of action is not debating the hopeless, but quite literally loving your neighbor and your local community, not living in fear. Take control and responsibility of your surroundings and build a society that denounces violence, here and abroad, in the name of righteousness, power and dominion.

By the way, spare a thought for the poor NSA guys that have to, in some instances, read through entire websites with posts just like this.

Big A

Thanks for this Eric…I have been passing it around. Would like to see your next blog about Mental Health, and how the infrastructure to mitigate the cracks through which people fall was so cavalierly defunded by (mostly) GOP reps.

Joe

Your ignorance of tactics is amazing.

Moses007

When you decide to rant about the core causes of these massacres maybe your points will be better received. As of now, the availability of guns is not the issue. It is exactly, in a roundabout way, what you touched on. Amurika has an arsenal as big as the rest of the world combined. The rule by fear, they take what they want and they murder at will and you never hear about it. If you do hear about it, you hear about how US forces “defended” themselves against “terrorists”. This day to day aggression we have been supporting with our tax dollars, with no consent at all, has conditioned people to fear the US… even it’s own citizens. You child Amurika the fuck out and disarm some of the world-inhalation tools they posses and you might see more peaceful generations come about that don’t feel the need to attempt to arm themselves out of fear.

A Canadian Observer

Dear Eric, I have seen you post many well thought out articles, so I was rather surprised to see how badly you dropped the ball on this one. Firstly and most importantly, gun control has almost nothing to do with nutcases and mass killings like this, it is absurdly easy both to get illegal guns and to come up with non gun means of killing large numbers of people. We should be thankful that the nutcases choose to take their inspiration from Columbine rather then Oklahoma City. As many others have pointed out, improved mental health care is likely a far more important factor in preventing this sort of thing from happening in the future.

As for the bulk of your discussion on whether an armed populace can defeat a heavily armed and presumably unified government controlled army you need look no further than Syria for a test case. Had the Syrian population been as well armed as the American it is almost unthinkable that the government would have decided to start shelling its own towns over peaceful protests, but if they had done so anyways the result would have been a messy but quick victory for the rebels. As it was, the civilians started out with almost nothing in the way of weapons, but the government forces are slowly losing anyways, in spite of having pretty much no outside support for the revolutionaries. You might argue that the U.S. will never have so despotic a government, but the Roman republic eventually ended up with Emperor Caligula in charge somehow. And while the U.S . has much better weapons and internet presence than the Syrian government it would also have to deal with the likes of Anonymous, who would be on a much close to even footing in cyberspace than things would be on the ground.

However civilians using their capability of bringing down their government through armed force is not the point, simply having that capability should be enough to ensure that a real need for its use is never required. It would be worth paying a very high annual price indeed to ensure that America takes(or has taken) a few more centuries than would otherwise be the case for the government to become unbearably despotic.

But now let us look at some wider context, I couldn’t find any good sources for school shooting numbers, but nothing I could find indicated an average death toll higher than 30 since 1990, with numbers decreasing considerably from earlier highs. In comparison, the 2010 numbers from the department of transportation show 211 children killed by drunk drivers, http://www-nrd.nhtsa.dot.gov/Pubs/811606.pdf and politicians who have been convicted of being part of the drunk driving problem are still getting reelected!

If you(and by you I mean everyone who reads this) really want to accomplish some good in society stop worrying about the approximately one person per 100 million per year who goes on a crazy shooting rampage and start worrying about helping the millions of mentally ill and making roads safer, with perhaps a special emphasis on stopping drunk driving. Or worry about finding a way to stop the tens of thousands of deaths every year from medical errors, or all the people who die because the American health care system is even more broken than the Canadian system where I live. Turn off the news and look for some problems with substance instead of sensationalism.

http://www.facebook.com/debra.a.ball Debra Ann Ball

so basically you are saying that the kids who were killed last week don’t matter. we should just forget about them and turn our attention to ‘more important matters.’ wow. Please feel free to post that with your real name. and be sure to let the parents of the people who were killed know how you feel, too. I post with my real name. I’m not afraid to stand up and say what I think. I don’t hide under cutesy names like ‘A Canadian Observer’ So who is important enough for you to worry about?

http://www.facebook.com/randy.curtis.12 Randy Curtis

What do you “myth” of the American Revolution? Who thinks the American infantry was better trained than the British? That’s the first I’ve heard of it. And just because you’d lay down instead of being willing to fight our (tyrannical) gumbit forces, if it came to that, doesn’t mean you have get in lock step with with those that think the police will protect us from all harm.

If teachers were allowed to carry then dude might not have even had the cajones to try the horrible thing he did. Gun free is a warm fuzzy feeling of false security.

BTW, check out Battle of Athens, TN, 1946. Citizens against a corrupt government.

KarenInSacramento

I see the gun rights advocates have jumped all over this en masse, but I still do not see
1) A REASONABLE argument for any regular citizen to have access to military-style automatic weapons
2) Convicted felons and the mentally ill should not have access to guns. Period. Though one of our biggest problems is that too many people get a “freebie,” where the first concrete demonstration of mental illness is their shooting up a shopping mall or an elementary school. See #1 and #3.
2) Any recognition of the fact that it is possible to control the types of weapons available to citizens without banning ALL guns. The Second Amendment does not allow owning any kind of damn gun you please (or canons or RPGs).
One of the other realities of Vietnam and Afghanistan (and to some degree, the Revolutionary War) is that terrorist warfare on one’s own soil is a hard combination to beat.

http://www.facebook.com/danielle.schaeffer1 Danielle Schaeffer

The Second Amendment says “arms.” Not guns, not muskets. No specific weapon at all. It says ‘arms.’ As for your number one statement, you obviously have not read the comments from military and law enforcement personnel themselves, explaining to you exactly what ‘warfare,’ is. Perhaps you should actually learn something about warfare before trying to rewrite The Constitution of the United States of America, especially as it pertains to the citizens’ right to bear arms, and make an uneducated assumption of the outcome of a revolution in the United States. Enough evidence, has been presented to the ‘anti-gun’ crowd to prove that superior weapons are not always enough to win a war, and presented by actual soldiers at that. To summarily dismiss and ignore that, restating which has just been proven to be false continues to prove that you are ruled by emotion and are therefore without the capacity for logic and even deductive reasoning. We fought and won one war to obtain these rights, we shouldn’t have to fight another one, against our own, to keep them. But we will. So YOU move.

KarenInSacramento

I see the gun rights advocates have jumped all over this en masse, but I still do not see
1) A REASONABLE argument for any regular citizen to have access to military-style automatic weapons
2) Convicted felons and the mentally ill should not have access to guns. Period. Though one of our biggest problems is that too many people get a “freebie,” where the first concrete demonstration of mental illness is their shooting up a shopping mall or an elementary school. See #1 and #3.
2) Any recognition of the fact that it is possible to control the types of weapons available to citizens without banning ALL guns. The Second Amendment does not allow owning any kind of damn gun you please (or canons or RPGs).
One of the other realities of Vietnam and Afghanistan (and to some degree, the Revolutionary War) is that terrorist warfare on one’s own soil is a hard combination to beat.

http://www.facebook.com/matt.bryant.106 Matt Bryant

what a stupid piece of writing. disarm yourself if you’d like bud. as for me, i’ll keep mine, thank you very much.

http://twitter.com/Georga2012 Georga Grivois

Thanks for bringing wisdom into the calculations! May minds and hearts like yours gain a huge influence as we discuss re-examining our lax Fire Arm laws!

http://www.facebook.com/kubulai John Nash

The reasons you cite are exactly why the Founding Fathers wrote that the right to own and bear arms shall not be infringed. To infringe means to restrict or limit in some way. Any restriction or limitation on arms to US Citizens is illegal, because the intent of the 2nd amendment is that the citizenry can defend themselves from any threat, concerning which George Washington wrote “which would include their own government.”

The target involved of course would not be the US military: the target would be the traitors in government, which are individuals not surrounded totally by military. As long as Presidents and Congresspersons worry some citizen may finally have had enough and remove them from office by force of arms they will rule far more circumspectly than of the citizens had not power to enforce their objections. Normally this is all that will ever be required. Normally, as long as the individuals in government have a healthy fear of the citizenry, the first amendment will be all that is needed.

The reason for the second amendment is just in case the first amendment doesn’t work.

http://www.ericgarland.co ericgarland

Please tell us where it says in the Constitution that if you’re “worried” about bureaucrats, you get to shoot them.

Since you are usually the same people who hyperventilate about incremental changes to health insurance as “COMMUNISM!” we need to understand exactly what your threshold for worrisome behavior is. Because if your plan is to shoot Congresspeople because of policies you simply disagree with -let’s say, a change to capital gains taxes – the word for that is “treason” or “domestic terrorism.” The last guy who decided that he could kill government employees – and their children in the daycare – because of “worrisome behavior” was Timothy McVeigh.

So why don’t you tell us all your view on when it’s OK to kill elected officials. We’re all fascinated at this point.

galen066

Hmm. Sarah Palin (one time Veep nominee) thought that using small arms in acts of targeted assassination of elected officials was a viable plan. That is, until some asshat shot Gabby Giffords in the face and killed a nine-year-old girl in the process.

You’re under the assumption ALL US Military would follow orders. Do some research into the civil war then come back and write another stupid editorial.

http://www.ericgarland.co ericgarland

You know what I would like from you guys? A fully detailed plan of this civil war you’re planning. Why will it start – give specifics. When are you planning it? Who will be involved? You’re all so sure of this imaginary war – please flesh it out.

We all need to know more about this – because you sound like you are planning treason. You are not a patriot – you are a terrorist who writes about insurrection and doesn’t even have the guts to sign his name to it.

D. Mitchell

You are far too assholeish to be a mod. I will ensure that non of you items are upvoted on reddit again.

D. Mitchell

Funny thing is our military hasn’t killed off the Taliban yet and they are only a bunch of cave hiders.

http://www.ericgarland.co ericgarland

Hey which is it – do we have the world’s best military or are they easily defeated by a bunch of overweight suburbanites with pop guns? Aren’t you disrespecting the troops right now? Can you keep your story straight for longer than ten minutes?

But please, if you have an elaborate plan for how you’re going to kill soldiers, please, we’re all waiting to hear it. Be detailed.

galen066

The US Government, prior to 9/11, was just fine to be partnered with the Taliban in the War On Drugs, to the point of paying the Taliban THIRTEEN FREAKING MILLION DOLLARS to burn opium crops (Afghanistan’s only cash crop), an act that almost collapsed the world banking cartel a few weeks later.

Joe

First it’s “Oh my god these weapons are too powerful for use by civilians, ban them.”

Then it’s “These guns are too pathetic and puny to do any damage, ban them because they are useless anyways.” Typical totalitarian/useful idiot/the end justifies the means lies.

YOU ARE MORE LIKELY TO DIE HUNDREDS OF OTHER WAYS THAN IN A MASS SHOOTING. You know that and so does the media and the fake crier in chief.

http://www.ericgarland.co ericgarland

Hello Brave Anonymous Internet Troll,

For those of you so poor at reading comprehension, I’m saying that the Bushmaster M4 Patrolman is excellent at killing children, and exceedingly poor at killing anybody sitting in an Abrams M-1 tank, i.e. the “tyrannical government” you are claiming to want to overthrow.

There is nobody more totalitarian that a person who watches children die and then immediately focuses the national attention on their desire to kill government officials. You people have crossed the line straight into the Brown Shirts. Look it up on Wikipedia.

galen066

As to using small arms to defeat a vastly technologically superior and dedicated modern military: Afghanistan. The local tribes have already defeated one force in this category (the former USSR, while admittedly getting a shitload of aid and weapons from the country/intel agency that made the invasion of Afghanistan by the Russians possible in the first place), and are doing a credible job of making the lives of American forces in the region short, hellish or both. And the Afghans are not using more more this time than they did last time, and are achieving the same end result of collapsing an empire by draining the treasury.

It is possible. Bloody, difficult and hellish. But possible. Is it wise? Oh, hell no. Your best bet would be to live close the ground and wait for the infrastructure to fail, as it did with the Roman Empire.

http://www.ericgarland.co ericgarland

These 82-IQ morons can’t tell the the difference between the US Army 7000 miles from home, and the US Army next to its supply lines. Their assessment of pistols versus helicopters is not better than their assessment of a decade in Mesapotamia. These are not people who can be trusted with ideas or guns – they are wise enough for neither.

Lisa

I love this. thank you

http://www.facebook.com/AleqBoyle Aleq Boyle

First of all Sir, while I respect your 1st Amendment right to free speech, you need to know we are a Republic not a democracy, having missed that basic element of civics 101 it is dificult to take you seriously on a matter for our Republic… as in To the Republic for which it stands…

Simma McFlerps

After reading the story and some of the comments, i think there needs to be a distinction. In no way would a militia stand up against the full automated fist of the US military. All badass Rambo-esk scenarios aside, they are impractical and will never.

However, i think if China (or whoever) decided to invade. Our second amendment rights would be quite beneficial to the protection of the US. Along side the US military, i feel an invasion of the United States would be damn near impossible.

People toting around AK’s and screaming at the government ‘HEY! Watch out, man, or you’ll have to deal with me!” is similar to a little kid screaming and acting like a tough guy to other kids on the play ground while his very large, big brother is silently sitting behind him. If he were to ever turn around and take a swing at his big brother, he’d be flat on his butt.

SS

That’s no argument for lack of regulation. I lived in Switzerland for a short period of time. The Swiss culture also values collective security among its citizens. In fact, two-year military duty is required for almost all males, and most of them traditionally keep their military rifles and handguns at home after leaving service.

While Switzerland is famous for being a neutral country, there is a strong belief in national security and military. But the Swiss also mandate tough regulation of guns. It’s important to note that those individuals who keep their guns after the military had to go through rigorous training to use these guns. The Swiss government also provides widespread availability of gun training to the public. Given the astonishingly high accidental gun death rate in the U.S., it goes without saying that many Americans who own guns do not seek training.

Moreover, the Swiss federal government accounts for all ammunition in the state: Each reservist is allowed two dozen rounds for “emergency use.” If you choose to have a gun in Switzerland, then you also agree to have your home inspected to ensure that you lock it properly and that no “emergency” bullets are missing. Furthermore, you must register all weapons and purchase guns through licensed dealers. You must also have a purchase permit that indicates you are mentally sound and not a criminal.

The result is that Switzerland has a high gun ownership rate, almost no gun violence, and the Swiss are satisfied with having collective security in case of invasion.

Dennie

I am in love. You are and will always be my poetic justice. Thank you far off fellow countryman.

Ken

Brilliant post!!! Thanks for taking the time to write this and I will be sharing on all of my social media outlets!!

There are ways of success.But it would take a lot of help.It would also take a lot of fate.Perhaps a divided military plus help from some other country with arms and money.This would be the only way and this has happened before.Remember Vietnam? Its not impossible but it would take a lot of luck and alot of help from above.

Frank Farkle from Flint, MI

Why does everybody assume that every Government Employee with a badge will comply with such a campaign like disarming America. I think those that do think this way should consider the fact that they all swore to uphold the Constitution from tyranny both abroad and domestic, you know, altering the Amendments is not going to fly, my guess would be high 90% that will fall into the non-compliant.

http://www.facebook.com/quinci.coates Quinci Coates

Bravo! I’m not sure that the US government would even bother with tanks and helicopters.
They would just send a drone.

Geenius_at_Wrok

I’m curious to know which side y’all think the urban gang members would take. Anyone think they’d side with the white-wing insurrection? Anyone?

How effective was the OIF campaign? looks like a bunch of untrained loonies with guns were effective against the greatest military in the world.

How would a bunch of hunters, sport shooters, and many veterans with combat experience who would employ similar tactics do?

I would imagine that the troops who disobeyed their oaths of office would quickly lose the will to fight. also, how do you think it would go over with Americas at home as helicopters and drones would inevitably begin bombing women and children?

http://www.facebook.com/debra.a.ball Debra Ann Ball

great article. On another blog a guy blasted me (because I support banning assault weapons) by telling me that World War II was won because of French resistance fighters wielding their small armaments. REALLY? I didn’t know!

http://www.ericgarland.co ericgarland

Dear heavens. The cognitive dissonance must be excruciating for these half-wits.

IntefadaAmerica

This is ridiculous. Have Iraq and Afghanistan taught you anything? You don’t fight the 68 ton tank with its active protection system. You kill the tanks mechanic when he goes home at night, you ambush the guy delivering fuel to the tank and leave his body in the middle of the highway, you let the tank commander know his wife and children wont be safe as long as he drives it. You don’t fight the gunship with its auto cannon you walk into bar where the gunship pilot hangs out and shoot everything that moves. You don’t fight the military, you grab the pro military blogger, saw his head off and post the video on LiveLeak.

http://www.ericgarland.co ericgarland

Oh, so the tactics of Al Qaeda. Duly noted.

Thank you for your patriotism.

http://www.facebook.com/danielle.schaeffer1 Danielle Schaeffer

They are the tactics of warfare.

American Soldier

Your whole argument is based on the assumption that the citizens of the United States would be fighting AGAINST the forces of the US Military and not BESIDE them.

Once you take that scenario away, you just have a collection of words.

http://www.ericgarland.co ericgarland

Who will you all be killing, you and this military that will suddenly no longer part of the federal government? We’re all fascinated as to who is in this civil war you are planning so vividly.

Andy Reid

This guys list of available armaments is sadly small. As a military veteran and police officer, I can tell you that your Army gets their ass handed to them overseas more often than you think. By poorly armed insurgents. Some with near falling apart weaponry. Nor does this clown think about the fact that most of these soldiers are against his position on assault weapons and probably won’t fight for a government who is violating the Constitution. That is, after all, what we vowed to support and defend. Not a tyrannical government.

http://www.ericgarland.co ericgarland

I don’t make a position on assault weapons other than to say they are less powerful than a bunkerbuster. If you disagree on that point, I’m not sure what to do for you.

Also, can you tell me how the “government” will be “tyrannical” if the army is no longer on its side? What is the scenario here? You and several other Americans are describing a scenario in which you need assault weapons so that you can murder government bureaucrats. When would this happen? Why would these bureaucrats be dangerous without a police or military force to “tyrannize” the population?

If you’re going to speak so openly about murdering government officials and/or military members, the onus is on you to describe why you will be doing so – in great detail. Otherwise, a unilateral decision to overthrow the government is called “treason.” The last person to decide that the government had violated his view of the Constitution to the degree that it required murder was Timothy McVeigh.

Please explain how your plans differ from his.

freemom

We do not not have to defeat the united states military. Their our mothers and fathers sisters and brothers etc… Are they really going to be the ones? Their not standing directly outside my door while my family is fast asleep. if guns are outlawed then only uotlaws will have guns.
that ‘s better?

Awakening the giant

Excellent writing, Sir. We The People are the most powerful weapon this nation has ever known. We The People can and will affect change. We The People do not accept the slaughter of children as collateral damage so that douchbags can play army with assault weapons. Doing nothing is no longer an option. We The People will have our say.

Scott Swigart

Oh, and unmanned predator drones that can stay aloft for 18 hours and launch a hellfire missile or two. And those are just the crappy drones that we know about.

http://www.facebook.com/arthur.robinson.9277 Arthur Robinson

I disagree with your assertion. I point to the fact that our country is massive, in many part heavily forested or mountainous, and that there are far more guns and angry people with them than have ever been had in any revolution ever.

Our technology is astounding, and brilliant, but it only beats out numbers to a point, and only when used in the method it was designed for.

Tanks are brilliant, but they’re no good if your enemy doesn’t form up, have emplacements on open ground, and are spread out.

The Apache helicopter is brilliant, it can level a city block, the problem is that it won’t work effectively against a massive guerrilla movement.

The issue with the military, is that ours is specifically designed to need a target to kill. If there is no target, and it’s just millions of angry civvies pulling off the occasional potshot and killing a couple of cops or soldiers before disappearing into the night, it works a lot worse. See Vietnam. Our military is not designed to occupy, and sustains the most casualties when doing that.

remember, just because you can fire more rounds doesn’t mean you’re more effective. One solid round from a higher caliber hunting rifle will kill, as we never invested in effective body armor for our soldiers.

You expect a full on, head to head war. I expect angry people out for blood. With the massive amounts of internal attrition, it’s likely that the supply lines would wear thin, and the military’s greatest resource, it’s logistics, would have a hell of a hard time supplying fuel and ammunition for those massively effective, but massively inefficient machines of war. No one has ever invaded a country so large or heavily poopulated as ours and won. Certainly not against a country that owns 3/8s of the small arms on the planet.

In addition, as the military would be firing on american citizens, and war-crimes would be bound to pop up, sedition from within the military would be inevitable, so it’s likely that you’d see this tech end up in the hands of a resistance movement, which has the benefit of easily discernible govt. targets.

I think they’d do just fine.

Scyther

Let me point out why this article is nothing more than fantasy. Rather than made up stories lets use real life examples.

The US does not, and has not, have full control of Iraq. With nothing more than rocket launchers and AKs the Iraqis have held off the US govt. And we can be 100% certain that the US govt would not use such devastating weapons on its own people like they do in Iraq.

The Syrians have successfully started a civil war and are doing very well. Starting with only limited supplies they have driven back an oppressive regime that has used fighter planes and tanks.

http://www.ericgarland.co ericgarland

Yes, it’s going swimmingly in Syria. You should buy a condo in downtown Damascus. Send us pictures. It’s lovely this time of year.

Scyther

Rather than address the points in my post you make an off topic remark in order to change the subject.

My post is evidence that an armed country can successfully fight back against a much better armed opponent, i.e. Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria.

Please present evidence that support your argument other than made-up scenarios that have never occurred.

http://www.ericgarland.co ericgarland

Generally, I don’t bother interacting with braying fools operating under pseudonyms. Imagine, sitting for a lecture about intellectual integrity from a person who won’t even proudly sign their own name to their ideas! But since you are the 100th troll from the Timothy McVeigh Red Dawn Pop Gun Squad, sure, let’s have a grand dialogue.

First off, your commentary shows that you are not an military analyst of any sort. Let’s leave Iraq – which you probably supported, like all the other right wing morons – for a later moment. You cite the situation in Syria without demonstrating the slightest understanding of what has transpired, much less its applicability to the issue at hand – assuming that Americans armed with small arms will prevail against the most powerful military in history. But first, let’s just look at a few of the things you have been to lazy and/or ignorant to address in the Middle East.

Syria is not a case of the common population resisting against a dictator using small arms. When it was just the peacefully-demonstrating population against the full military, it was a wholesale slaughter. The Syrian people, you moron, did not “rise up” with their small arms, a scenario you hope to prove your point about AR-15s in the hands of every American mental patient somehow securing “freedom” against the “Gubmint.” Not that you could be bothered to research this – but it was when the Syrian military refused to butcher its fellow countrymen at the behest of the al-Assad regime, which has been crushing the Syrian people for decades, that it became a fight. It is only because the military refused to follow the regime’s murderous orders to commit war crimes that it became a “fight” – a fight between military factions. And so now the situation is military arms vice military arms, NOT military arms vice population with small arms.

Also, how do you think the Syrian rebels are getting their supplies? Had it occurred to you that the Great Powers in the region (you know, the ones with real military power, not a bunch of assholes with rifles, beef jerky and a few cans of Red Bull) are giving backdoor contacts in the Opposition the necessary imagery analysis, ammunition, and training to help dispatch the Assad regime? Do you think it’s the average Syrian with a pistol, or had it occurred to you that the CIA, Mossad and MIT (who know who they are, right?) are working hard to counter Iran (and likely Russia, maybe even China), and are likely putting a ton of resources into the fight to counter Hisb’allah in the region.

You do realize that this is a wretchedly horrible situation for the Syrian people, caught once again between Great Power politics, ground under the heels of geopolitical expediency, right? You do recognize how very little this has to do with your seventh-grade (at best) fantasies of Georgie Washington crossing the Delaware and resisting the Powerful Empire Using Gumption and Muskets, right?

Of course not, you idiot. You also don’t compare the Syrian situation with the fall of Mubarak in Egypt. You haven’t said, “Well, shit, Eric – I think you’re wrong, but I am curious as to why the downfall of the recalcitrant Mubarak regime, funded by so many Western powers, seemed swift in comparison to the years of bloodshed it’s taking for the Syrians to rise against al-Assad, who has far less money and almost no allies.” Well, if you did, you might learn that the reason the Egyptian regime didn’t murder hundreds of thousands of its own people was NOT because “the people” had a bunch of fucking .223 cailber rifles against bombers and satellite imagery and armored cavalry – but because the Egyptian military was trained by the American military – and we were able to contact their officers outside of official channels and tell them that if they murdered their people, the salaries would stop. Because, as you of course know, the Egyptian military has been financed by the West for some time as a way to take pressure off of Israel’s western flank. And so, through our informal ties to the real power, America and other allies were able to assure a more humane outcome. Of course, this wasn’t possible in Syria, since it is such an unusual state in the international system, depending on far fewer states than the average regime. And that’s why Libya and Tunisia and Egypt – which all sold petroleum on the world market – have had such different outcomes that Syria, which is just a really sad story for its people, who have suffered so terribly.

Let’s not even bother with Iraq and Afghanistan – about which we are assured that you are equally stupid. You don’t have a fucking clue about Syria. You don’t have the ability to assess military situations, and nobody should give a goddamn about what you say about gun rights in America. Because you, just another anonymous Internet troll douchebag, can’t think properly about anything.

You, writing semi-anonymously from Sherman, Texas, are out of your depth. Stick to fantasy football leagues.

Scyther

You are wrong on the reason Egypt was not a civil war and Syria is. Egypt did not slaughter its own civilians. When protests started in Syria Assad did the same thing his father did. He tried to quell the riots with force and killed many people. Even after that, the only reason it continued into civil war was because when Syria was formed all the power was left to the Alawites. Right now it is mostly Alawites vs rest of Syria. And you mentioned that Assad is getting support from Hezbollah and Iran which is true. The Free Syrian Army is made up of military deserters and normal people. They managed to acquire military weapons after fighting with small arms. There really isn’t that much difference between semi-automatic and automatic.

You say that Egypt didn’t turn into a bloodbath because they were trained by western countries? Lol. The military didn’t kill their own people because they have a conscious, not because their paychecks might stop. And if America wanted a humane outcome for Egypt they would gtfo and stop interfering with everything. It is the Wests fault that all these dictators are there in the first place.

Iraq and Afghanistan still stand as examples of how weak and hold-out against strong. A people can only be conquered if they allow themselves to be.

http://www.ericgarland.co ericgarland

So Saddam Hussein is still running Iraq, because he didn’t allow himself to be conquered by stronger people, right?

You people are fucking adorable.

http://www.facebook.com/SWIGGY1957 John N Swegan

Eric, one item of the military experience that you left out in your article: the drones. During the Revolutionary war, the best either side could do was lob cannonballs at the enemy. The soldiers were still within the line of fire. It remained this way up until WWI, as more and more advanced armament came into play. Rising up against our government has been a down hill battle since then. During WWII, Korea, and Vietnam, pilots could drop bombs on targets while well out of range of the average shot gun or rifle. Today, thanks to technology, a NWO/ Neo-Nutzie group even considering overthrowing the government could be wiped out by a video-game addict that’s enlisted and is stationed on the other side of the country from their target. (Current military recruiters LOVE it when they discover that a potential recruit loves video games)

People often dream about guerrilla warfare as being the way to go, but in the end, nobody wins in a guerrilla warfare environment.

http://www.facebook.com/CptParlay Charles Austin

Ever heard of Afghanistan? No?

Two Replies

Do NOT auto-associate Libertarians with conservatives.

Conservatives are opposed to ALL change (that isn’t in their OWN best interest… such as tax-breaks for THEIR constituency).
Libertarians are pro-individual rights and liberties for ALL.

Conservatives tend to only advocate for people who align themselves with THEIR agenda, (often based on race, religion gender, nationality, age, sex etc etc).
Libertarians advocate for individual liberties rights and liberties for ALL (regardless if it means advocating for another race, religion, gender, nationality, age, sex etc etc).
Conservatives often find themselves head-butting with and/or demonizing the ACLU.
Libertarians are more often than not card-carrying members of the ACLU.

http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1121645297 Luke Mullen

Here’s a 1946 example of a ‘militia’ (random WWII veterans in Tennessee) rising up against their corrupt local government through force of arms.

Shall we take a look at the actual legal definition of the militia as set forth in the United States Code:
Section 311 of US Code Title 10, entitled, “Militia: composition and classes” in its entirety:
“(a) The militia of the United States consists of all able-bodied males at least 17 years of age and, except as provided in section 313 of title 32, under 45 years of age who are, or who have made a declaration of intention to become, citizens of the United States and of female citizens of the United States who are members of the National Guard.
(b) The classes of the militia are ?
(1) the organized militia, which consists of the National Guard and the Naval Militia; and
(2) the unorganized militia, which consists of the members of the militia who are not members of the National Guard or the Naval Militia.”

Mr. Madison moved, to strike out that part which related to the members of Congress, with their officers and servants attending either house, and to insert the members of the House of Representatives, whilst travelling to, attending at, or returning from the session of Congress, and the members of the Senate in similar circumstances, or in case of a separate session of the Senate. He did not see any reason for a total exemption from the service of the militia, and it was a principle with him, that on every occasion where an exception was made in favour of the framers of a law, that exception should not be extended or carried beyond what is evidently proper and necessary. Now to exempt the members of Congress at all times is unnecessary, because during the recess of the houses, they may be at liberty to pursue their ordinary avocations, and participate in the duties and exercises of their fellow-citizens. They ought ever to bear a share of the burthens they lay on others, in order that their acts may not slide into an abuse of the power vested in them.
. . . . .
Mr. Madison thought it an important principle, and one that ought in general to be attended to–That all laws should be made to operate as much on the law makers as upon the people; the greatest security for the preservation of liberty, is for the government to have a sympathy with those on whom the laws act, and a real participation and communication of all their burthens and grievances. Whenever it is necessary to exempt any part of the government from sharing in these common burthens, that necessity ought not only to be palpable, but should on no account be exceeded. He thought the amendment, together with the constitution, provided on this occasion for all that was necessary, and that the clause as it stood at present, went beyond that necessity.

http://facebook.com/frank.castle.5283166 Frank Castle

Oh, and Mr. Garland, you dead sure that 100% of SeAL Team VI would follow an unlawful order? 50% of cops wouldn’t. The polling is quite revealing. Don’t choke on it.

http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1683200091 Andy Johnson

Guess the rebels in the mideast didn’t know this but have held our power at bay for several years now. When we leave they will still be there. But they had mostly homemade weapons. We should have learned that lesson in Vietnam, but apparently we didn’t.

jojo

There are around 200 confirmed and legitimate self defense shootings in the US every year, in which one intruder or assailant is killed with one bullet, not a machine gun, out of 30,000 total gun deaths.
We all took math in elementary school, right?

TomKi

This essay is worth very little attention.

http://www.facebook.com/lovelynjlady Jill Suzanne Faucher-Ross

Sorry, i just DON’T BUY IT. You do NOT stop crime by arming everyone, including children. That is plain INSANITY.

Truth Hurts

Asault rifles saved the korean business section in the LA riots, also dept of homeland security claims the ar15 in 556 nato with a 30 round mag is suitable for personal protection.

Truth Hurts

Assault*

fed up with know it alls

Mass shooting happened only two or three times in US schools before the gun free zones started, how many since people? Think about it. And to Eric your look into history is good but laughable on a number of points. And do some research on gun statistics will you, every time states open up gun laws crime goes down. Conceal carry is a good example.

Zoie Press

Hello… I felt compelled to give everyone a heads up about an author I’ve been following people should check out. His new book Damascus Road is excellent and right on point. His other book published last year, Almost Home was chilling about a power grid failure – and then Hollywood ripped it off for the TV series Revolution. Hollywood is such a rip off. Anyway… here’s what I’m in to and thought I’d share.

The author L. Charles Holt: Almost Home and his most recent book Damascus Road.

Damascus Road is a story of love of family, digging deeper than you thought possible when facing insurmountable odds and making your own luck until you ultimately succeed even as the world crumbles around you.

Just thought you folks would want to know about these books. I love his favorite quote:

“I’ll do what it takes – shoulder any burden, protect and defend family and friends. I love my family, my God and my country – I’m a Man living my days in America.” .

All the best ya’ll.

Zoie

public servant # 4001

I work in Hartford CT, last year prior to Newtown there were two incidents here. Both involved a drive by shooting gang related threat made directly to the school. Both times HPD maintained an ARMED response of at least 10 individuals. They had hand held metal detectors. Both instances never made the news. It was a primarily black school. Thank you mainstream white media.

Tommy t

Don’t forget David killed Goliath, But you probably don’t believe that either… were talking about fighting for freedom and liberty, not fighting for tyranny like obama and the Mercenaries of Homeland security … Yes it would be a dirty war, If 10 million patriots rise up to defend freedom you might be surprised, Otherwise, With your solution, we are just destined to die off slowly until the rapture Before the full on tribulation takes place and the second coming of Christ! After the full on tribulation! Regarding poetry, I have been writing a lot of political oriented songs, however, for the last 20 years or so!

Rob

Most of the weapons in the US military arsenal are useless in a guerrilla war. The US military cannot fight it’s way out of a guerrilla paper bag and has not won a guerrilla war since the Philippine Insurrection. There is no way the US military could win a guerrilla war in a country so vast that each state is the size of a country and there would be tens of millions of full and part time guerrillas. Guerrillas own warfare and almost always defeat their military foes.

Willis

While such a scenario is far from likely at this point, it’s a shame that your little analysis assumes that the military would not join with American citizens if there were a battle to defeat tyranny. And why would this be an oversight for you, unless you PREFER it that way? it just doesn’t jibe, the knee jerk reaction where you join lockstep with others who are willing to give up their fundamental rights just because an inept government is unable to effectively manage the mental health system. And that also goes for proper parenting of bi-polar/ schizoid kids. So, speak for yourself.

axia777

This article ignores the fact that a large majority of the US Military when polled said under no circumstances, even under orders, would fire upon the American public.

http://www.facebook.com/austin.miller.5203577 Austin Miller

I’m sorry to tell you this, Eric. Yes, we could defeat the U.S military, there are millions of us. I doubt the U.S military could handle 50 million Americans armed with Semi-auto rifles. Half of the military isn’t even stationed in the U.S. not to mention, U.S armed forces soldiers are Americans LOL . Eric, i believe you know what you just wrote is wrong, but you are paid good for your work in spreading lies. Lies that dishearten people and make them believe they stand no chance against tyranny when they could easily crush it!!!!!!!!!!!

PatriotNewsNetwork1

Whoever wrote this article does not deserve to even live here. You are not a Patriot. How are the tanks and apache’s working out against the terrorists in Afghanistan dude? are you slow, we lost the war, just like we lost in Nam. Guerrilla Warfare is just about un beatable. The Patriots used it against the Britts, get your facts straight. A militia using IED’s, lone wolf snipers teams, and shoot and run away ambushes would pick even a USMC platoon apart eventually. And the mental factor of thinking a sniper is everywhere

Eric Garland: Strategist, author, speaker

My name is Eric Garland. I study major trends for people who have to make big decisions. I am the executive director of Competitive Futures, where I provide strategic and competitive analysis to executives from business and government agencies.